Cough by David Yezzi

I see you once I’ve got you down to size:

a two-day-stubble squatter; jailbait eyes;

the bottle-headed trophy mom; the mentor

always angling his face down from the center

of his universe to shine a light on yours.

The fated anorexic, whose allures

shimmer in the mirror for her eyes

only, denying what her denial denies.

Once you become a cliche I can hate you—

or, treat me tenderly and let me date you.

But that only retards the writing-off

that comes with boredom, amour propre, or (cough) 

irreconcilable differences, i.e.,

those things about you that are least like me,

yet just slightly different, my foible’s homophone,

so in hating yours I really hate my own.

This keeps the focus where it wants to be—

On whom, you ask? Invariably on.... See?

I didn’t even have to say, did I?

I love you so much. No need to reply.

---

Read more about this poem and poet on the Poetry Foundation website: http://bit.ly/WMBpK0

Sent from The Poetry Foundation POETRYmobile app. Download your copy from AppStore now!

Sent from my iPad

Flower by Na Tae-joo 풀꽃 / 나태주

자세히 보아야
예쁘다
오래 보아야
사랑스럽다
너도 그렇다

You have to look closely

To see that it is pretty

You have to look long

To see that it is lovable

You are the same

'You have to look closely

to see that it is pretty

You have to look for a long time

to see that it is lovely

You are the same.'

Except for Being, It Was Relatively Painless by Mary Jo Bang

                                         It was relatively painless except for being

all she could see: a world made of dinner, very pleasant; a lunch

at something called a table in the dining room; an endless night;

a half-day; another lunch, this on Tuesday. Yesterday. Today.

Pieces propped up with supports. The therapist tapped his cigar.

He no longer accepted her general opposition to myth, marriage,

Olympic Games, and the course of decades. He said it was as if

she were engaged in an eternal war, either watching a movie

or acting in one, depending on the situation and time of day.

She sat in silence, the sky above a half-baked blue, a blank-

face dying of awkwardness. The simple explanation boiled down

to the too-easy explanation. He was smart and charming then;

and later, much less so. Behind his head, pictures were crammed

together with the top layer hung so high she had to crane her neck

to see the details. He said to please pretend she was listening.

Costumes Exchanging Glances by Mary Jo Bang

                    The rhinestone lights blink off and on.

Pretend stars.

I'm sick of explanations. A life is like Russell said

of electricity, not a thing but the way things behave.

A science of motion toward some flat surface,

some heat, some cold. Some light

can leave some after-image but it doesn't last.

Isn't that what they say? That and that

historical events exchange glances with nothingness.

Approximately Forever by C. D. Wright

She was changing on the inside

it was true what had been written

The new syntax of love

both sucked and burned

The secret clung around them

She took in the smell

Walking down a road to nowhere

every sound was relevant

The sun fell behind them now

he seemed strangely moved

She would take her clothes off

for the camera

she said in plain english

but she wasn’t holding that snake

"Give up trying to write something sophisticated. Forget all those prescriptive ideas about "the novel" and "literature" and set down your feelings and thoughts as they come to you, freely, in a way that you like."

Leaving the Empty Room by Stephen Dunn

The door had a double lock, 
and the joke was on me. 
You might call it protection 
against self, this joke, 
and it wasn’t very funny: 
I kept the door locked 
in order to think twice. 
The room itself: knickknacks, 
chairs, and a couch, 
the normal accoutrements. 
And yet it was an empty room, 
if you know what I mean. 
I had a ticket in my head: 
Anytime, it said, another joke. 
How I wished I had a deadline 
to leave the empty room, 
or that the corridor outside 
would show itself 
to be a secret tunnel, perhaps 
a winding path. Maybe I needed 
a certain romance of departure 
to kick in, as if I were waiting 
for magic instead of courage, 
or something else  
I didn’t have. No doubt 
you’re wondering if other people 
inhabited the empty room. 
Of course. What’s true emptiness 
without other people? 
I thought twice many times. 
But when I left, I can’t say 
I made a decision. I just followed 
my body out the door, 
one quick step after another, 
even as the room started to fill  
with what I’d been sure wasn’t there.

I Think I'll Call It Morning by Gil Scott Heron

I'm gonna take myself a piece of sunshine

And paint it all over my sky

Be no rain, be no rain

I'm gonna take the song from every bird

And make 'em sing it just for me

Bird's got something to teach us all about being free, yeah

Be no rain, be no rain

And I think I'll call it morning from now on

Why should I survive on sadness and tell myself I've got to be alone

Why should I subscribe to this world's madness

Knowing that I've got to live on, knowing that I've got to live on

Knowing that I've got to live on

Yeah, I think I'll call it morning from now on

I'm gonna take myself a piece of sunshine

And paint it all over my sky, yeah

Be no rain, be no rain

I'm gonna take the song from every bird

And make 'em sing it just for me, yeah

'Cause why should I hang my head

Why should I let tears fall from my eyes

When I've seen everything there is to see

And I know there is no sense in crying

I know there ain't no sense in crying

Yeah, I think I'll call it morning from now on, yeah

I'll call it morning from now on, yeah

'Cause there ain't gonna be no rain, be no rain

Be no rain, be no rain from now on

 

For Love by Robert Creeley

Yesterday I wanted to 

speak of it, that sense above   

the others to me 

important because all 

that I know derives 

from what it teaches me.   

Today, what is it that   

is finally so helpless, 

different, despairs of its own   

statement, wants to 

turn away, endlessly 

to turn away. 

If the moon did not ... 

no, if you did not 

I wouldn’t either, but   

what would I not 

do, what prevention, what   

thing so quickly stopped.   

That is love yesterday   

or tomorrow, not 

now. Can I eat 

what you give me. I 

have not earned it. Must   

I think of everything 

as earned. Now love also   

becomes a reward so 

remote from me I have 

only made it with my mind. 

Here is tedium, 

despair, a painful 

sense of isolation and   

whimsical if pompous 

self-regard. But that image   

is only of the mind’s 

vague structure, vague to me   

because it is my own. 

Love, what do I think 

to say. I cannot say it. 

What have you become to ask,   

what have I made you into, 

companion, good company,   

crossed legs with skirt, or   

soft body under 

the bones of the bed. 

Nothing says anything   

but that which it wishes   

would come true, fears   

what else might happen in 

some other place, some   

other time not this one.   

A voice in my place, an   

echo of that only in yours. 

Let me stumble into 

not the confession but   

the obsession I begin with   

now. For you 

also (also) 

some time beyond place, or   

place beyond time, no   

mind left to 

say anything at all, 

that face gone, now. 

Into the company of love   

it all returns.