Bats
–Louise Glück
Photo by Vlad Kutepov on Unsplash
How the Past Comes Back
–Natasha TretheweyLike shadow across a stone,
gradually–
the name it darkens;as one enters the world
through language–
like a child learning to speak
then naming
everything; as flower,the neglected hydrangea
endlessly blossoming–
year after year
each bloom a blue refrain; asthe syllables of birdcall
coalescing in the trees,
repeating
a single word:
forgets;as the dead bird’s bright signature–
days after you buried it–
a single red feather
on the window glassin the middle of your reflection.
Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash
To My Fifties
–Jane HirshfieldYou opened me
as a burglar opens a house with a silent alarm.
I opened you
as a burglar opens a house with a silent alarm.We knew we had to work quickly,
bears ecstatic, not minding the stinging.Or say it was this:
We were the wax paper bag
in which something was wrapped.
What was inside us
neither opaque not entirely transparent.
Afterward, we were folded into neat creases.Or this:
Say we were paired
parentheses
cupping two dates, a hyphen,
and much that continues unspoken.Say:
We were our own future,
a furnace invented to burn itself up.
Photo by Amruth Pillai on Unsplash
The Wall
–Laura Kasischke
One night from the other sideof a motel wall made of nothing butsawdust and pink stuff, Ilistened as a man criedto someone on the telephonethat all he wantedto do before he diedwas to come home.“I want to come home!”That night a man crieduntil I was ankle-deep in sleep,and then up to my neck, wadinglike a swimmeror like a suicidethrough the wavesof him cryingand into the deepas icebergs cracked into halves,as jellyfish, like thoughts, werepassed secretly between people.And the seaweed, likethe sinuous soft green hairof certain beauty queens,washed up by the sea.Except that wewere in Utah, and one of uswas weepingwhile the other onewas sleeping, withnothing but a thin, drywall between us.
Three Types of Loss
–Andrei CodrescuThe loss of one’s temper in a room with absolutely nobody
to catch it
is a loss of time insofar
as time is the only place things
get lost in naturallylosing things constantly implies
a frequency of loss which when measured
is equal to the wavelength one is on in
relation to the things one losesaction that cannot be translated in loss is the only
action
worth rememberingthings doomed to loss meet
and get lost together that much fasterall things have in common a tendency to get lost
it is only human affections that
keep them in placethen there is a person called Mr. Loss
who answers house calls the same way
a doctor does—he is supposed
to diagnose the condition of things
on the move and by inevitably confirming
everyone’s worst fears he makes
the condition officialthe universe gets lost
and then reappears bathed
in a different lighteverything has a place to get lost in
and this certainty makes
most things stay putsince one does not lose what one
does not have
most things make themselves necessary
loss of memory after a sleepless night
implies that the things one could have been
dreaming about were the nails that kept
those memories in placeloss of memory at a certain point of heightened interest
in the thing one can’t remember
proves the fact that although this is
a universe of nonsimultaneous phenomena
most things would like to be seen in contextmemory disregards context
it is an enemy of experience
therefore unreliable and since
basic memory is a condition of survival
i assume that we survive
in spite of experiencewhen one forgets as a philosophy
each forgotten thing is raised to the status
of a god (i.e. an objective condition)
and makes everyone else remember
things that they haven’t experiencedsome memories bring with them brand new
experiences different
than the original contexts in which they occurred
and thus set up the conditions
for brand new memoriesmost things endowed with memory die
prenatal memory is common property
but it is not
objectivewords and pictures are the only
things one can forget at leisure
and look up later
what gets lost in translation
reappears in disbelieftranslation is the only form of communication
where loss is practiced
as part of the gameliteral translations lose music while
poetic translations lose the originalelements which translate themselves
into other elements
do so at the expense of energyfat translators are common:
they feed on what they cannot translatethe conscious and the unconscious
are languages in a state of translation
and their respective losses
are the godstranslated in english
most things take off their clothesthings lost in translation
band together symbiotically
and haunt the worldwar is an aggregate of losses
through translationthe day is a literal translation
the night is a poetic translationenergies translate without apparent loss
but the use of them
makes up by being pure losstranslation and use are in a parenthetical
relationshipfate is the necessity for translation
Photo by Alex Dukhanov on Unsplash
Unfleur
–Sandra LimSpring obliges
my imagination
of return
then
it annihilates it
What is death
but reason
in flawless submission
to itself
No
not reason
something stonier
Bedtime Story for the Bruised-Hearted
–Donika KellyThe trees were all women once,
fleeing a god whetted with lustuntil their fathers changed them, bound
their bodies in bark, and still the god took:a branch to crown his own head,
the reeds to hold his breath.How like them, our fathers,
those small gods who unearthedtheir children with rage,
who scored the barkand bent the branch
to bind their bodies with our own.Tonight, my love, we are free
of men, of gods, and I am a riveragainst you, drawn to current and eddy,
ready to make, to be unmade.
Photo by Alvin Engler on Unsplash
Dear Io,
–Madeleine Wattenberg
Photo by IGOR FIGUEREDO on Unsplash