Poetry Wednesday

An Education

She

took a tumble, came up laughing

with the wrong shoes, and some others

(a terrible group).

I was there

but quietly; I had to learn something

about being female

(bring it back to the milk pond

and chew it).

In the cold season I

put snow on my gums, while the terrible ones

took to the air

like crows:

water-slick and shining feathers.

The water tastes metallic,

here.

I’ve been craving stone-fruits

to soothe it.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd, something not-mine that I love:

Untitled

A poem from Take It, by Joshua Beckman

Red, the want, the body, slowly

all perturbant drapes fall upon your cheek

and you are left here only to look and

to speculate on the first day of any one

thing. Oh world of pills, boats, and

polka dots, how you let me live, that’s all.

A spinning love for some. A staring love

for some. An edifice. A comb. A kind

disquiet. The crew running back and forth.

Have you asked yourself how, with all we

know, we cannot enter the air as smoke

enters, or the lungs f others as smoke

enters. Have you asked yourself great

critical questions of form and matter, how

they will not spill into your day, or

all concentric circles eerily swimming

around you, as if you wish to ever

forget. On Thursday night you will

return from work to find me here,

and then a year, and then all those things

I have to do. A rose bag from which

the light will spill. And for some time

the light will be there and for some time

the empty bag.