introduction. It is with great honor and pride that I unveil our sixth DDFS course anthology. From brag poems to hauntings, these poems rattle the bones, grab the throat, beg to dance and shimmy their glittering poem-bunz across the page. They ask for your urgent attention, they hold the hands of family members, they will strike your heart like a bell. Each women in this anthology is her own brand of deep badass - some gentle, some roaring, some a mix of the two. I know you will fall in love. Please note, dear reader, that many pieces are hot off the press with minimal editing. They are raw form explorations, which makes them urgent, important, seering. Keep them gently balanced in your hands, but eat your heart out. To my participants: keep spinning the golden thread of your thoughts. Keep stomping through the city in boots, but be mindful of flowers. Keep high fiving the people you love and keep reaching into that daunting night to riffle for a star or two and slip them to pocket. You all have guts. The kind of guts so many envy. Let them see you in their mirrors and encourage them onward, the same way you’ve encouraged each other. You are the example. Shine! Write on! Caits Meissner Founder + Creative Director To join us in the next round of Digging Deep, Facing Self: www.caitsmeissner.com/course
Table of Contents. untitled / Hermia Swann Hauntings / Hermia Swann bold / khaliah d. pitts we are gargoyles / khaliah d. pitts (Breaking the Victim Role) / Alejandra D’Angelo {Strong} / Alejandra D’Angelo Secrets / Cassandra Leveille Prompt 13 / Cassandra Leveille Untitled / Karla Alfonso Shameful Thoughts / Karla Alfonso Gemma (admiring a woman) / Mayra Chavez Ancestry / Mayra Chavez Dear Sana / Sana Ayesha Ghani Misoshiru of the Century / Yumi Tomsha For My Little Sister / Yumi Tomsha Portrait of Ugliness / Rachel Kahn Oh, Rachel— / Rachel Kahn Shame Shed / shae byer Relieving Secrets and Shame / Jamie Richards One for My Familiar / Teejay Luna Hauntings / Jacqueline Luna Eradicating Envy / Jacqueline Luna Bragging Rights / Molly Swoon I Know / Molly Swoon Untitled / Sonia Alexander Letter to Self / Sonia Alexander That Feeling / Caryn Michelle Moore Smile / Caryn Michelle Moore Dearest / Mariana Villafaña Untitled / Mariana Villafaña
untitled Hermia Swann
I. It was easy then. Easy to let your fingers wrap around my flinching wrists, easy, also to let your lips, chewed raw graze my clit lazily. II. It was easy–– to feel my bones hollow hollow bird bones splintered at your boots. Earth eats bones, grass roots eat bones suck marrow, pis poussent, poussent vers le ciel empty of you. III. Then, empty,
it was easy. Hands and skull strong, and full of stories.
Hauntings Hermia Swann
This is a dirt road a dirt road worn, wheel ruts ridden hard, ridden deep into packed earth, inescapable in the night. Once slipped in, the only way out is to break an axle, come to a complete halt. These ruts are in kitchen knives, the ones your tongue licked labneh off of in an inadvertent tease. These ruts are in rope, the one you used to tie my wrists to your bike that one time, before I tied it into a noose and had to throw it away. These ruts are in trains, the plaintive whistles I’ve loved since I was five, steel tracks that flatten penny souvenirs. Two parallel lines. Two parallel lines, like Natalia’s iceskates–– the trackruts suck me towards them from anywhere, anytime, unexpected. Crack axle, complete halt. Hope
(don’t hope) the crack opens enough this time to clench fingers around edges and haul myself out.
bold khaliah d. pitts
if i may be so bold as to say: im the shit i mean i am so fine niggas jaws divorce their skulls tryna get a taste of this i teleport and time travel be here in my bed and haunt the minds of men long after shared subway rides and furtive glances my smile is a star, light years gone and still dazzling your dark i Midas touch the breath of criminals and transform ghetto busted sidewalks into yellow brick roads and Persephone tossed and lost pennies into seeds into flowers i weave syllables through time to call back ancestors, colorfully garbed in metaphors i pull oceans between the gaps of my teeth just to season my tongue i mold clay figures into knights and never have to castle my king cause im the queen that ends the game in three moves and i always win at chess my laugh is the graceful bellyflop of orcas my voice is hypnotic as media and symbols, and stars with all the millions of wishes and dreams they keep my love is as great as the yawn of the cervix, come here, live here, leave here my gospels carry the irrefutable truth of numbers and the conviction of martyrs my body, the orchestral majesty of planets swaying in the bridal train of the sun my spine has the timeless stature of the pyramids, the oldest song prophetic and true ima job quittin on thursday bought a plane ticket on friday seducing Managua with my wizarding words and treating Cape Town to pleasure of my company on Saturday -kind of girl ima wrapped in black and lace and cotton dancing in technicolored embroidered slippers draped in all the gold and copper and brass and jasper that my earth can carry
-kinda girl ima love you and tsunami you just for the sake of rebuilding you -kinda girl if i may be so bold i be moon and witch and storm and ultraviolet and divine and sage and redwood and Atlantic and Atlantis and lemurian and timpani and cello and Venus and Pluto and Sirius and African and god.
we are gargoyles khaliah d. pitts
our first time i panted with eagerness listening for footsteps in a dusty and desolate stairwell i yanked up the leg of my sweatpants held you gingerly in-between my blistered bassist fingers i placed silver point to the fleshy peninsula of my thigh and deftly skated it across skin lipstick redness a slow seepage over dermis the first of many kisses. do you remember you first time? the thrill, the flush, the flutter the morphing of canvas becoming story under pen that was me an always artist just can't stay away from creating/pain the thrill of running, bones creaking, muscles screaming running for no purpose or gain, running from nothing to everything plane tickets to new territories the ocean tugging at your toes the yank behind your navel from the first cold caress i cut and i scratch and i will always juggle pain with the feeling of release i am not taboo or afraid or ashamed i may be just a foolish dreamer but i don't care i am the creator and destroyer and dizzy lover i yearn for the thrill of forbidden kisses stolen in stairwells
and cellars and bathroom stalls i am a gargoyle coming to life at sunset my cracking stony skin, a roaring yawn do you remember your first time? i remember my first last and every sunrise and transformative sunset sandwiched between do not cringe at the cracks in my stone the prints of pressed kisses on my thigh and arms they are ledger lines and magnetic field lines and growth rings and bridges and evidence evidence that i am a gargoyle coming to life at sunset my cracking, stony skin, a roaring yawn do you remember your first time? the first time you turned cold gray cement into windows the first time you escaped into the taboo the secular pages of a banned book your first kiss you shouldn't have had the first time you morphed into a mythical creature as a path to freedom we are all defenders of the night we are all gargoyles i won't turn to stone at sunrise anymore khaliah, you little piece of magic i forgive you.
(Breaking the Victim Role) Alejandra D’Angelo
Memory spots like chicken pox Inamorata persona non grata Lacerations expropriate skin censured and shellacked Bleeding Aglaophotis in lucid bloom, fata morgana Abbess blessed with a kiss, parturition Eidolons without ersatz Catamenia and sanguine fluid accost upon my lips, Her strider pierced my ribs with the Lance of Longinus From Tangier’s aurora crescent, dematerializing innocence through sex Ripped mesh, champagne glass shattering, tower of cigarette ash decaying Chateau of sand afar, spider web in the sky gallivanting ribbons of yarn Photon adorned from stars like feathers crystalline, tears of G-d Diaspora of Paradise, Dante’s children our past is neither forgotten nor gone Superficiality and reality helter-skelter, emboss through malevolence’s lust My moods are irrelevant; adolescence is revenant, this vessel rusted by violence Perpetuated cyclical fracas through love, apostolic succession Felicity raptures, partners ditto the beatings too high to notice the fractures Intoxicated by toxicity garnering hickeys, bruises and black eyes like plaudits of vestige I’d agree, hit me if you love me the jealousy spoken by fists then fucking is enamoring Victimization in denial, Stockholm syndrome and the past checkered Different names looking for big sis embarrassed when I realized all of this: a broken record.
{Strong} Alejandra D’Angelo Beyond the anchorite and amaranth lies Yoko Shimomura's Bloody Tears Apoptosis, carved from fluoride my biology deus ex machina I have no history Zones of origination are phenomenological artifacts in fragments Through persecution labyrinthian evolves to emancipation and liberation Radicalism echoing Malcolm X and Rosa Luxemburg Primal screaming, a lioness's roar untethered or equivocated She alliterates oppression into universal dynamo Like Dido, or Queen Esther Magneto revolutionary gravity using electromagnetism Freeing mutantkind, "I'm Frankenstein's monster." he said, Though not the same the sentiment remains, We find power in pain.
Secrets Cassandra Leveille In the dimly-lit room, cold and musty with age, my tentative arms held you tight. There were only three days left but I thought it meant something, that this was the last time I’d see you. My burrowing nose wanted to savor the smell of your olive flesh and I felt your lips, two butterfly wings, on my forehead. The wings, batting softly, lightly again in crease of starting hairline, burned straight. It was not a mistake, no longer heady imagination. “How old are you?” you asked, your voice softer than the one you used in class – stream-of-consciousness, rambling, apologetic about rambling. After you left I sank into the couch, sank into my wetness, wishing I’d joined you for a cigarette. You are my phantom; you exist in furtive paragraphs you write, monthly. We overflow, we create rivers, streams, whole oceans of words to bridge our distance Every time is the last time, maybe we kiss hungrily, I have to confirm you are real, you are real You are my treasure chest, I unlock you, I pour in my loneliness, jars of rainwater to add to the ocean I pour in everything I convert myself to liquid. When I fell in with you, my hair became wild. You refused to drown. Defiant, you bring me up to the surface to face my shame to survive
Prompt 13 Cassandra Leveille
For warm tears dripping down your face, no longer flushed with shame, for the girls that hold your hands, squeeze with small, strong fingers, for reading words and knowing you are not alone, for the dripping of ice cream in the creases of the sidewalk on your race home, for writing words, filling pages, for the warm feeling you got as a child when you squeezed your thighs together, and again, as a woman, on a dark night in summer when she brings your hips to hers on her front porch before you leave her house, and she draws you in for a soft kiss, for her old, black cat, grey behind the ears, curled up on your lap, its small head resting on the bulge of your tummy, for riotous laughter with your sister you no longer have to apologize for, for the hard-earned knowledge you do not have to put anyone else's needs above your own, for impromptu song lyrics written in your head, the melodies jangling and confident.​
Untitled Karla Alfonso
Mi Madre me ama Run run run She runs She runs through me They tried to wash her away The warrior bleeds through They took the land She fought back Hasta nuestra lengua nos cortando, Nuestros nos nombres nos citando History diluted and white washed Not Latino Not Hispanic Fuck the Italian in me She still runs in me She runs in you The mix bloods, the fulls Shes in us Waiting Nican Tacla Together her people Nuestra madre vamos a cuidar We will rise She will shine
Shameful Thoughts Karla Alfonso
Pobre pajaro "Pa que me trae este aqui" Feeling like a caged bird that is aware of what its wings are capable of. You set me up to fail. Brought me to a plastic wasteland with sponsors They sell dreams that rot at your fingertips. My country has long forgotten me and this place doesn't want me I am stuck on this island and it is all your fault
Gemma (admiring a woman) Mayra Chavez
Your name Gemma although beautiful, does not reflect the true beauty I see whenever I glance at you. Seeing you walk around the house is an indulgence. Gemma, you take so much pride in defining your Mixteca culture with your vibrant color clothes. You celebrate your culture with such uniqueness and admiration. Your dark bronze skin reminds me of the of the pine cones that fall from the redwood trees, just beauty. I wonder if you know the glow that attracts people to you. Your smile lights up any foggy day in Santa Cruz. The green in your sweater is the redwood trees in the backyard of my house.The sound of the wind when it passes thru the redwood trees sounds out your name, Gemma. Your Mixteca language is music to my ears not because it is music but because after 500 hundred years of colonization and numerous languages lost to hear someone speak a language that continues to be oppress by systems of oppression is something that not only is courage but admirable. You speak of Oaxaca like it’s the best place in the planet and I secretly believe you. Gemma, I see so much beauty inside and out like a river streaming down to reach the ocean, clear but once it reaches the ocean there is so much more that the surface (our eyes) can not see, unless we dive in. Gemma, you are one of a kind.
Ancestry Mayra Chavez
500 hundred years of colonization and still we are here, alive, fighting for justice that was once ripped away from us. In a land that was once freely to roam in and now even the rain water is privatized. But we are united in the struggle like the familia that is so scared to our people. Our family consists of tios, tias, primos, primas, abuelos, abuelas, compadres, siblings, and parents. are we loud? oh yes!!! But we also always are there for each other. The beautiful rainbow of people we are, brown, dark brown, black, white, we come in all shapes and sizes with a hint of European. They say Cortez discovered us-We proved them wrong. Civilization had been formed in the Americas long before the Europeans conquered. The Incas from Peru, The Mayans from Guatemala and southern Mexico, The Mexicas, Tlaxcala, and Olmecas from Central and Southern Mexico. The Anazazi, Chereokee, and Ohlone from the United States. These are just few. We are decedents from some of these indigenous civilizations but instead of holding on to them and worshiping them we ought to continue their legacy with the surviving indigenous groups, us and become the communities that many of these were. We take for granted the groups that continue to struggle because they didn’t not assimilate like many of us did. Community and taking responsibility is our ally. Now we see that everyone is talking about being eco-friendly when our people were the ones that told the Europeans that this land was to be taken care of and not to be destroyed. That mother earth provided for us but could also take it away if we didn’t treat her right. Now we are facing droughts that were unimaginable to our ancestors. I know my ancestors paved the way for me to be proud of where I come from and to take action on any cruelty being done to the surviving indigenous groups. Mi cultura indĂgena es bella pero no es para que se apropien de ella pero en vez apreciarla.
Dear Sana Sana Ayesha Ghani
these meta/ physical meanderings are going no where still, you follow your tongue, bathing in liquid velvet or moon/light or street lamps copper ice dream, instead of a rock strewn steamy history or maybe where olive trees wood and soot wrapped in red silk, flow clear your finger traces ruins calligraphic strokes peacock pears across your belly where the world moans and there,
finally, you sing.
Misoshiru of the Century Yumi Tomsha
1. Before she was obaachan, before she was okaasan, she was a girl. A nineteen-year old girl on a hill in Kumamoto, with a nightmare, a tape that cannot rewind. She watched the cloud – tree of poisoned mushrooms towering over Nagasaki. 2. In Tokyo, Obaachan raised three post-war daughters. She washed them all together in one small bath and cried into the water. Ojiichan came home late nights when only the moon lay bare. Obachan cooked misoshiru in the mornings with every vegetable she could find: daikon, kabocha, on lucky days, an egg. She piled the vegetables in her daughter’s bowls and left for herself only broth. 3. 10 years ago, Hiratsuka, my grandparents’ apartment narrow like a subway car. I woke up early to the sound of Japanese talk shows
and scent of misoshiru. ‘Ohayou, Yumi-chan,’ Obaachan said, placing a bowl before me. Sunset vegetables, layers of dreams. Floating on top, the color of sunflowers, an egg. 4. Today in Brooklyn. I pick up fresh vegetables from the community garden. Last month at the senior home in Nagano the tea cup shook in Obaachan’s hand. I cook misoshiru with kabocha, daikon, an egg and whatever else appears in my basket. She no longer cooks her own misoshiru, no longer walks to the outdoor market to find gifts for her grandchildren. Obaachan taught me how to create beauty With the ingredients we are given. She did not recognize my brother although she knew she loved him.
For My Little Sister Yumi Tomsha Before her hair turned to snowfall Your father’s mother sat in the sun. Hearing news she would at last hold a granddaughter in her arms, she chose your name: Moet ‘first green of springtime.’ When you were a baby Shioh-san came to our house, dipped your feet in calligrapher's ink and placed them on rice paper. Before you could walk, your feet, smaller than roses, announced spring. Obaachan’s dream came true. Wherever you walk, spring follows. You are Christmas in April, Oshogatsu in May; sun that beams in the heart of a lemon; artist whose hands steer ships across oceans of paper; little sister for whom we would travel to the ends of earth. This year you turned nineteen. In late April, Obaachan passed to the heavens as spring maples reached full bloom. You sit with mom in the kitchen. On the altar lies the portrait of Obaachan you drew from memory. The house is quiet, walls like clouds. Mom pours tea the powder-green of new leaves, you tell her about your day. In your ink-black eyes she sees the sky she wished upon when she could not see the stars in Tokyo. In your voice she hears layers of lullabies she sang to you.
When the teapot is empty, you hug her goodnight. She holds her youngest child close for a crescent moon of a minute, and then lets go as a wave crashes below the surface of her voice: ‘Oyasumi. See you in the morning.’
Portrait of Ugliness Rachel Kahn There was never a way to take enough of it off—to make enough of it go away. Dredged up from the well of excess and rolling, rolling, oozing out and over the sides,covering everything. Smothering the light and the land until air wasn’t even a memory. Dreaming of nothingness—of the absence of—of lack and of leanness is aspirational, pointless. Drumbeats, where the other girls have their hearts. Too much. Not enough. Too much. Not enough. When you were born, a volcano exploded and ash still follows you. Grey clouds, grey footsteps. You smother and suffocate. In killing yourself by inches, you’ve only succeeded in turning to stone. Accidental frescos, immortalizing the worst possible moment. There will never be a way to make it all fit. Magician scarves spilled out and unspooled, the hat explodes and disappears in a rain of frightened doves. No place to tuck away the excess of ungainly color. You can run your hands over it, call it soft, call it beautiful, pretend you don’t realize you could lose a limb this way.
Oh, Rachel— Rachel Kahn It’s been a minute since you realized that what looks like love isn’t always love and that love poems are usually something else. Not city streets, not mother of pearl. Cracked robin’s eggs, the brightest blue— the blue you want to smear on your face, load on to your tongue, rename as “radiance,” even if it something else entirely. Open hands and cracked glass, everything worth having comes from shards. Everything worth having is the stories you tell. Breaking open sound after sound, like walking into the ocean on the kind of starless night that fools you into believing that water skyline and city skyline are secret twins, taking some time alone. Tell me about reinventing perfume. About secretly gulping the air from pillows, from beads, from sweatshirts, and pretending it is the same as knowing she will pick up the phone. Every day you wake up living and this never stops being a surprise. Every day, the sweat on your face, small of back sinking into mattress. People fall in love with their own mythologies, with the reflections of their faces in bus windows and the rearview. The lie of weightlessness in tepid late summer air that pretends to be the absence of air.
Shame Shed shae byer
i was mummified carefully embalmed wrapped in endless layers of fine cotton bandages holding my fragile skin and brittle bones in place fear of withering, crumbling, disappearing altogether from disuse slowly unwrapping so many lengths of yellowed dressings sunshine breathing through cracks of warm light began to warm my morbid flesh return feeling to my wasted limbs circulation trickled back into muscles awkwardly delicious tingling racing into long unused parts awakening my body turned the sweet alive colour of summer peaches the milky brown of a creamy latte from the sun's kisses my skin quivering with the anticipation of just being alive newborn all over again giddy to be touched to discover the world around me through every craving, delicious
sensory means my pores open to yes! every orifice hungry to sample from a delicious smorgasbord of life pulsating, throbbing, ready, open, wanting, gleeful to lap up LOVE in its spectrum of ways to suckle love, feed it at my new-found breasts throw it back to the world a gift to whom may find it pass it on share the joy of it pass it like a brightly coloured beachball touched, shared, suspended in the air by so many ecstatic hands for all to see, to savour
Relieving Secrets and Shame Jamie Richards
Stomach overcome with cramps paired with feelings of nervousness Too afraid to breathe lest one movement opens the floodgates Tis too late I am so afraid, she will be mad, everyone will think me disgusting Goliath brought down by a sunflower coloured sea The gates were opened without my control Relief was not to be appreciated for long here Sullied by the worries of a 9 year old Waiting I feel the brush of the warm Jamaican breeze, but I shake like a leaf As I wait for them to see what I have done My friend taps me on my shoulder Your bag is leaking she says I do not respond I sit in shame as the circle of my leaking bag gets wider A circle so wide it cast its shadow for years to come High school, a time to start over to leave the memory of it behind Will they tell the ones who don’t know? “I heard a secret about you” jokes make my stomach drop like an anvil meeting the ground But no more I can’t tell you when I left it behind I don’t know where I dropped it or when things got lighter In fact I don’t think there was one moment Somewhere while taking life’s journey I began to sprinkle its darkness, the need to keep it an untold story The further I went the more distance came between us Between me and the memory of a 9 year old hearing “no, just wait” She couldn’t wait
One for My Familiar Teejay Luna
You wear simplicity like an aura Anything more violates your landscape Like a plaza forced between forests Brown, round, and an extra inch of wonder Proud willow tree, you grow uplifting roots And walk, and walk, every step a seed Servant of Mother child of the stars Secretly dining on fruit from the altar If you watch long enough, catch her moving To sneakers hop-scotching & the traffic lights blink LA in her hips Motown in shoulders She snaps and grown-ups turn into children She laughs, the sun in her belly making this little moon glow
Hauntings Jacqueline Luna
I remember it in slow motion. Us, slyly holding hands in the corners of the house party. the roof top covered by night. Us, with plans of tomorrow beginning at the end of this alley. Bottles breaking. Voices raising. Its time to go. "Ill meet you there" You walking towards her to say goodbye. My eyes become professional lenses zooming in to capture each motion. Your lips cover hers. She responds. and there I am. Lost. between those lips. Between that empty space your mouths surround. That hot humid place between self-blame and shame. Heartbeat rising. Voice breaking. Your apologies slide underneath my nails as I try to climb out of this hole of invisibility. My screams confirming to my throat that I am still here. My tears forbidding me to disappear into myself. And Im still here. How am I still here? A version of myself that has gone through the right amount of exposure. Belly laughter only for those who are deserving. "Fuck Shame" reminder pinned to my heart and door each time i walk into the world. Face first into the sky as I pump my legs to get me higher. I feel my body extend and contract. extend and contract. Yes, Im fighting to love myself now.
Your eyes and your hands witness the change. Like the goose bumps on me after your kiss. The birds in your large shadow of a tree claiming every inch of the sun-filled sky remind me of the music in my hips and the movement in my heart and with each song i feel the sun move up my body as i dance out of this darkness!
Eradicating Envy Jacqueline Luna
Your heels announce the coming of your presence. The butterflies become alert in my heart and dive to my stomach. Oh, the excitement to see you! Tall as a sea of sunflowers face first into the sun With the jingle of the metals, soft stones, and bangles effortlessly placed on your body. I can see you now. The sides of your head shaved to expose where you have crossed from fear into risk. Then swiftly to the soft layers of your hair that somehow declare your love of women. And its that moment again. When my fork cuts into a soft chocolate lava cake and the insides pour out, exposed. Do you see me? As you walk, I imagine Im you. For a moment, I can feel myself move through the sweaty palms and find myself dancing in the full acceptance of self love. Right there. on the same dance floor where I witnessed them fall in love. Full embrace and eternally connecting their souls. Is that how clothes feel on you? Each piece bold as the next. Saturated in your fierceness. your confidence and love.
Bragging Rights Molly Swoon
Dream a drowning by my tongue. I turn your legs to waterfalls, curtains of water pounding, slap of a hand hard down on thighs spread, rocks beneath soaked sheets, your clasped finger heart beats together, overcome Dream my kitchen knife slicing artichokes for dinner. You don’t know who you are until I look at you, a reflection, puppy eyed, ink black pools shrink in the light, lost when I look away and found when I call your names, come Dream a house earthquake shaken, and wake to my voice, you hear the certainty of seasons. I could make you believe anything you say is true or doubt everything, I want to see you baby, come over
I know Molly Swoon
New one touches me I rise to reach, sing my breath we play rough, push each other close to edge cliffs, swap secrets in our stares and weave want with our fingers we are chasing this sweet delirium down like teens nicking liquor from the top her parent's fridge and I’m here until I am not A sick creeping oil slicked and choking an eight legged haunting crawls hips to chest, growing, and I confuse it with the hand between my legs, frozen, snap and blank look, I hold the arm, push against chest, confused and empty twins now, breath, silence carving tracks temples to ears, ten days pass and we are still staring at the ceiling. I say I’m sorry I say I don’t know Then banks burst I bet on every WhyIStayed hashtag he doesn't do this every time he fucks what perfect injustice, no windows and a busted lightbulb this one, that one, too, three years in I look at each face and wonder how he got back in my bed. Grandmother, you don’t look yourself today.
Those big eyes consume with the answer: you are not who you once were either. New one observes my storm quietly, meets me on the other side. I don't want Yeah Songs from a salty lost voice breathing in tune. I know
Untitled Sonia Alexander First, a Jewish boy figures out how to be friends with everybody To maintain integrity, a jewish American man returns to Europe to fight the Nazis Later, a Jewish man leaves his angry, snarky and domineering jewish wife Another jewish man decides money will save him and his The resonance of high holiday liturgy in the cool autumn air, walking through colored, crunchy leaves in fancy shoes The shofar blowing, apples and honey Collecting sticks in a little red wagon Building a sukkah under the porch Mom and Sol cooking brisket The little that I know: Rats and boats and rape Loss of Yiddish Judah becomes Lew Suburban Judaism: bat mitzvah sunglasses and sweatpants. Loss of not just song and tradition, but the love of it, and the knowledge of its beauty Poppy’s guttural voice telling us we are the loves of his life Everyone talking and laughing over each other, and keeping up Like a secret language in the wake of Yiddish The haunting ache of niggunim the absence of the richness of song and text: a hole in my chest that fills up in their presence, an ancient remembering proof of ancestry, of past lives knowledge passed down in our bones Insomnia expected Chronic pain in all of our bodies Fear of scarcity that no amount of abundance can interrupt
portraits of the disgruntled and the orthodox chinese restaurants on Christmas eve full of my loud family hanukkah candles in the dwindling daylight
Letter to Self Sonia Alexander Sonia, sometimes your body flows and rolls like sunlight pouring in The grass is erupting through the cracks in the sidewalk; it is creating the cracks in the sidewalk you were once rachie and you still are gazing with adoration at a snail and wearing the same red turtleneck dress everyday now you want to know whether you will run or stay when this island begins to sink there will be skeletons entwined in graves you watched the snow pile around you, inside with a puzzle you pieced together the edges, she filled in the middle you played the song again and again until you could sing it together you dreamt the leaves didn’t fall they clung in their magnificence wrinkled bright strokes frozen in a winter landscape now, two seasons fall in one we cut dead leaves off of our house plants we cut our hair five generations, they say it takes for people to heal from war, mass violence five generations without repetition in each one what do we do with generation after generation aftergeneration? it is a vacillating opening, it won’t close ink has lifted, turned to pencil you can erase it it is unwritten the Book is open pages are fluttering with the falling leaves. Here, there are still new beginnings, Constant.
That Feeling Caryn Michelle Moore Do you ever get that feeling? You know, like your blood vessels are humming Electric Arteries abuzz with exultation Exaltation Holding mini worship services in reverence of your very being When your pulse syncs up with the rhythm of your life And you know your every day endeavors are what you’re called to do That feeling when rain drops tumble down the tangles of your hair And cleanse any thought Every thought You ever had about altering your appearance Or your heart Do you ever get that feeling? When the train doors part like the Red Sea at your presence Just long enough, just wide enough For you to step into the next sweetly serendipitous moment And you meet the people you were meant to know A human orchestra playing a sacred symphony on the night air And you’re certain you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be That feeling when fireflies write affirmations in the sky Flashing new mantras on the shadows of your spirit And you get lost in your most saccharine-soaked imaginings Of life with your love And find a healing you couldn’t have possibly conceived of And you want to perfect the craft of time travel Just to go back And tell your 17-year-old self that it will all be worth it Do you ever get that feeling?
Smile
Caryn Michelle Moore I cover my mouth when I’m delighted When I laugh so deeply that it moves the most steadfast elements of my being An almost automatic veil Pay no attention to the mess behind the curtain! Look too closely, and my vulnerabilities are laid bare I still smile If eyes are the window to the soul, then my teeth will channel you to my childhood Uneven edges Rocky, but inviting Gaps in concern Spaces carved out by neglect I still smile Someone once called it “generous” Despite its impoverished beginnings And she was right My smile sweeps across my face unrelentingly Broad like the shoulders that bear the wondrous weight of womanhood I still smile
Dearest Mariana Villafa単a
We have created an illusory reality To cope with what has been lost. The cold sweat of sheer panic That enveloped you on a sweltering summer night Over the harrowing thought that, Former lovers move on too. But we both know that, sometimes Love is not enough. We cannot wait in a tiresome game In order to return to the rapture of when We first fell. Trust me when I proclaim, This rancor will dissipate. Simply let your heart speak with candor. Let it mourn the memories that will not be; Yearn for the warmth of their momentary touch. For all shall be redeemed by you. Yes, you. You magnificent being of a woman. With your graceful tenderness. You will brighten the empty caverns, With your crooked smile. Together, we shall cast delicate beams of golden light That will enliven our wilted spirit. We will let go of our inhibitions And relinquish all self-doubt, So we may bask in our natural radiant beauty. Together, we will learn to love;
Without fear, without judgment. We will achieve a harmonious balance, An internal melodic vibration, That will divulge your resilient spirit. Trust me when I say, We will return to love. Soon your olive skin will be dripping in the honey Of the woman you have become. For she is all you need To love in this present moment.
Untitled Mariana Villafa単a
Hermana hermosa With that honey brown Mane of a lioness You have blossomed Into luscious greenery Planting firm roots For your sharp mind Birds chirp in delight Welcoming the warm rays Of your smile With their song The wind carries Your strong-willed spirit As you courageously Dust your feathers Of the dredge You are the epicenter Radiating waves of Purposeful destruction Enveloping everything With the vastness of Your delicate fissures Together, We will reconstruct