The Cruelty of Strangers
A guy made fun of my heart today
he called it an apple.
i don’t understand this
human compulsion towards
cruelty
would i ever make fun
of a tattoo i didn’t know,
waiting for food
in the bagel shop? no.
i am never mean to
strangers. i save it
for people i know,
the deserving.
you i would not hit
or punch or smack
but i would like to watch
someone else do it
not a stranger but a girl,
someone like me someone
who really deserves
to kick you in the stomach.
someone with really good boots.
connecting with the soft rolls
of your belly. oomph.
ever get the wind knocked
from your lungs? it’s scary.
i would like to see you
on the sidewalk like that,
a fish out of water
but I won’t do it.
if you were brave enough
to stand in my face
with your stupid advice
i would gently remind you
that we are not friends.
you live at the very bottom
of the sea
a dark and cloudy place
with absolutely no light,
just big sluggish ocean things,
probably slimy,
that sit forever in the sand,
no day and no night
so why do you think
you are qualified
to discuss this girl who is actually a lion
or a mountain,
something big out of nature
something with excellent
presence.
i’m not an idiot, you know
i can, like, pick my friends
and nothing’s going
to work me over
like you and your salty barnacled hands
miss pearly lip soft eye
the face that once looked angelic
now strikes me as mildly retarded.
goodbye.
back to the girl
with the excellent presence.
i’m trying to appreciate nature
but all i get are
peach lillies
in a vase
at the bagel store.
can i write a powerful essay
on the transcendental nature
of nature
leaning on the glass counter
waiting for my onion with
dill cucumber to arrive
and those things
on the pavement,
you call that a tree?
-Michelle Tea, Submitted by: Caroline Smith
I Would Remain by Night with You
I would remain by night with you
who, having held me once, wrapped everything I knew
into my sleeping body’s hold and held fast and stayed.
You shuttled in sleep against me and away, not sleeping,
beached and exhausted by wine and rushes from
another life whose body my body meant to alter.
But I am wayfaring and recently wrecked;
I understand the cost of pulling free from what once loved you.
I would remain by night with you, if the night is clear enough
to see by, and the wind light enough to draw the stars
in the skin’s skies open, and the waves you sensed
through the dress in the wind are real, and only mine.
- Johanna Klink, Submitted by: Amy Keresztes
BEFORE EVERYTHING IS OVER
before everything is over i would like to make love to you
the same number of times as a gentleman knocking on a
door that will never open for him.
the same number of times a mirror fails to reflect the spirit
of a ruined man. the same number of times a young woman
discovers in the middle of a noisy party
that she is alone. i would like to make love to you like a man
leaning his face from the window of a passenger train to catch
one more look at the one woman he ever
truly adored, but now he must leave behind. like a circus
performer looking up at a ceiling of trapeze rings, crazy
lights and precarious high wires,
knowing he will never climb that high. like a washed up prize
fighter reaching for the canvas because it is his only friend.
like a bum reaching for a twenty dollar bill
that is blowing across a busy boulevard. o i would like to
make love to you before the passersby pass by before
the falling sun falls out of this world
and into the next, before the brown bear of winter falls
into his magnificent winter slumber. i would like to make
love to you with my forehead
pressed to your naked waist. with my platelets pulsing in
your veins. with my brain on fire and snow falling on your
hissing flames o i would like to make
love to you a hundred times with the shuddering knowledge
of you, with your frozen smile and untraceable fingertips.
you with your indecipherable dreams.
because i am doomed to live with you even when i am
without you — you with your incomplete shoulders. you
with your rainbow colored lips.
you with your empty hands. your perfumed silence, your
perfect elegance. you, with the sunlight that leaks out of
your darkness and into my world.
- George Wallace, Submitted by: Heather White
TEN THOUSAND
It is dusk. The birds sweep low to the lake and then dive
up. The wind picks a few leaves off the ground
and turns them into wheels that roll
a little way and then collapse. There’s nothing like branches
planted against the sky to remind you
of the feel of your feet on the earth, the way your hands
sometimes touch each other. All those memories,
you wouldn’t want them over again, there’s no point.
What’s next, you ask yourself.
You ask it ten thousand times.
- Roo Borson, Submitted by: Kristin Saetveit
