Aftermath by Sabyne Pierre

(After Javon Johnson)

The moment dad’s number appeared on the telephone screen
I knew what exactly waited on the other line
We hadn’t spoken for almost three months now, but that is not the longest he’s left me alone to find my own way
I have decided this poem cannot be about my father.
I silenced my phone, turned it over on the table, and hugged my nephew when he came home from school that day
I knew that love—
If there’s anything it could do—
Love would foster his growth, the right way 

Dinner time discussions meant that at some point someone would bring up the elephant in the room, or,
The elephant not in the room
Not even in the neighborhood
Or the city
Or the state
A decades-long ongoing adventure of “Where’s Waldo: Father Addition” Who was the last to speak to him? Is he still around? Is he still alive? 

But this poem cannot be about abandonment.
Have you ever stopped and witnessed the aftermath of a disaster?
Love floods
Floods
Floods in from all corners of the world
Emergency responders rush in to save lives,
make sure no one is forgotten
Food is helicoptered in to make the grief more bearable
I remember, I remember how the floor trembled beneath me the moment I learned about my mother’s death
I remember, not knowing who else could help rebuild our lives if not for a black mother
And still.
A community is rebuilt, stronger,
more durable,
capable of withstanding tragedy when tragedy strikes 

I did not find community in a father
I cannot help but think of all the other little girls who grew up to be women and searched for their fathers,
searched for community,
Sometimes in other men
Holding for dear life onto relationships dripping in trauma and sadness,
Searching for security somewhere
Giving
Giving
Giving and getting nothing in return
A wise woman once told me,
Love is a huge pitcher of lemonade. If you do everything to quench someone else’s thirst
you will be left with nothing for yourself 

But this cannot be a poem about relationships.
No! 

This poem will be about the aftermath
It will be about the little girls who turned into women
and somehow mustered the strength to stand tall, shoulders back, chin held high,
Disaster after disaster
This poem is about first responders and friends and family and therapists,
And everyone who rushed in,
to make sure we were not forgotten 

And snack bar foods being helicoptered into my dorm to make the grief more bearable 

How beautiful and painful it is to watch as I am being rebuilt,
stronger,
more durable,
capable of withstanding tragedy when tragedy strikes 

I am so grateful that this poem is not about sadness
Instead, it is about my decision to finally heal 

 

It was…
Lemme see, it was— middle school summers 

And mom with a pitcher of lemonade for all the kids on the block. Yo
Everyone had crushes on everyone 

waiting for all the kids to come home from summer school,
good and bad, just not smart enough.
It’s ok.
We had years and years ahead of us to think smart 

Hiding spots!
Khalid stands in front of me, as usual,
he is taller and stronger
Says he’ll protect me
and I smile 

And I think back to the tower that summer and how Disney princesses always need protecting
but none of them ain’t ever look like me!
Why do I need protecting? 

I push Khalid away and I tell him
I’m gonna save myself! 

and this time,
I do

Waffle House Poem by Anonymous

Waffle House Poem
aka Saying Goodbye to Hydrocodone

I.
lord lord lord
please help me get away from this sun.

take me to Waffle House,
open when everyone else is closed, like how god is supposed to be, i think.
(it hurts to do this to you)

come on in, honey, you’re okay.
take a seat, i’ll make you some hashbrowns.
i’m gonna call you Salem. you a witch, baby.

II.
give me those syrup sticky menus and the quiet
quiet quiet of a gravel parking lot when neither of us knows what words to use to interrupt the silence.

what even are grits, anyway?
(i’ll try not to forget you)

don’t worry about it, baby, we got you.
we got you we got you
you a witch, baby, remember?

III.
why do they have a jukebox here?
i know a guy who was thrown behind one once, then beer flooded the electrical socket and he died.

i wonder how many people have died in places like this.
(i don’t think i want to see you again)

oh honey, don’t cry. you’re okay.
nothing bad is gonna happen.

nothing bad happens here.

The Fucking Concrete by Carter Welch

Whoa! she screams, and even the rain rails
Hard against the brittle ground.

Sometimes the sky is false and other times it reeks
Without color. On those days, I see no eyes nor
Soul in the blankets of clouds that envelope this
Land. It is a land of divots, a land of fractures. It is
Something which I feel at once unsettled and at home with.
This sprawling and bland land.

Upon the porch I see the highway then the lights then the water
Tower of the ugly city three miles out. M-50 and all the lights
Whir by slow; black air seeps into the oak tree which hangs over
Her house. This land is a mother, right? or maybe it’s a father too.
It raised her when her dad’s heart lost control across the Pacific
And now she lives amid the waves, albeit the waves are clean,
Cold, and calm in all their fervor. The deer cross the cornfields
Rustling the husks. And it’s cold. It is the cold that inebriates.
It is the that cold entrenches. It is the cold that gives you all life.

Well you didn’t expect it. You didn’t expect the campos of
Corn and soybeans to be such, did you? You did not think that
Life outside the fucking concrete and the fucking density of it all
Could enchant and compel you to question who and what you are.
You don’t question nor do you ask. But the black air and the rustling
Of the leaves and the fucking silence of it all struck you like the
Crack of a hunting rifle. Even the rain rings distinct. Trains whisper
Across the distant horizon. The little lights scattered across the countryside
Make you cry. Even though you are not one to cry.

Horse hooves mark the hills. The fence is torn in a few spots, her
Dogs are always running and always losing themselves under the
Interminable sky. She grew up here and the land is hers. The land
Raised her and she felt its tendrils embed into her nerves and it doesn’t
Leave. It doesn’t leave. Wind roars softly upon the screen door
Banging shut and the house upon the hill is empty once again.

Hooves against the sand and she cries in delight. Earth rises from below.
She hollers again while the corn sweeps her up, Alone with her father.

Boxcutter, or The Target Poem by James King

The job was boxes. Boxes came in at six in the morning.
Pick up box, move box, set box down,
dissect box with a boxcutter, dull-edged scalpel
encased in green plastic, slung at my hip
like a revolver in a cowboy movie, or else
a ceremonial knife, gilded dagger. I’d offer
the wood and plastic entrails to the gods passing by with shopping carts.
The gods didn’t want them, gods said no-- sacrifice unaccepted--
and they had to be buried in the back, with other
Unacceptable things. I slept there sometimes,
sore back to cardboard, when no one was looking, though
I blended in well with the backstock.
And sometimes I emerged from pale sleep
surrounded by pillows, towels,
bowls spilling suicidally from the shelves
onto the concrete floor. The boxcutter was still at my hip. A warning.
Stainless steel doors and iron rafters hung to the side
and above; metal computer towers around exhaled
from their glowing white bellies, while the very wry phantoms that wrote
notes to my soul in fine stationery dissolved like fog,
and I remembered that I was sad, and broke,
though I could still taste their dissolution
like smatterings of sugar on my dry hard palate.

It was only an aftertaste, but I enjoyed it much the same.

Reverie by Mia Nelson

the summer in Indiana when we almost met,
my grandmother began to give away her
jewelry. I would lay next to our four-foot
deep pool and blow the filmy black bug bodies
across its fake green surface, carelessly
wearing my saddest, most recent pearls.

if you had seen me then, I don’t know
if we would have fallen in love.
I was too busy

picking tick heads from my ankles
& sucking the poison out of snake bites,
convincing Hannah to french kiss my cousin

while laying in the purple milkweed counting
the buds beneath our breasts. I was off being young
when you took the wrong turn from the freeway and kept heading
east past the town I shoplifted my first something in.

it was the summer of self and I have no excuses
for the permanent sunburn across my chest
from laying in it

that delirious, dangerous spitted out
light. but what am I doing repeating
myself? I already told you I wanted a body
to remind my body what it was. What I wanted

even then was still you. you, some stranger visiting
an aging aunt thirty minutes away. that closeness
I could smell, me and every she-dog I’ve ever met know
smoke and fire and your body best.
I knew it then and years and years later when your mom showed me
the photo album. you were just around the corner

playing soccer barefoot and being that kind
of annoying, all-american kid who never thought of sex
but was just handed it, while I stood around mouth slick.

will you ever believe the same organs involved in wanting
are necessary for not-wanting?

each catacomb of time is suffocating,
why can’t you touch me now and have it be like
I never spent a long summer in corn wishing someone
would love me back.

I can almost wish you to the edge
of that pool, your hands playing with
the dusty pearls sitting in my collarbones

O,
I will never stomach it,
the limit to our limitlessness.

My Name is Ramilda by William Owen

My name is Ramilda, I’ve not got much time
So please listen closely and hear out my rhyme
I’ve come from a nation unheard of by you
And bear on my conscience some terrible news

First, you must know, all is not what it seems
I can see in your eyes you’re not all that keen
To hear of my tale, but please let me speak
In a couple short minutes, your interest I’ll pique

There’s a whole race of men living under the roads
Their beds are the sewers, their Gods are the toads
They have no true name, though some call them “the rovers”
They’re a nocturnal people who wander all over

They feed on the filth and the grime and the muck
That falls to the gutters off trollies and trucks
In darkness they toil, setting cables and pipes
They wire the wires which light up your lights

The jobs no one wants are the ones that they do
De-greasing old engines and screwing in screws
In pennies they’re paid and in dollar’s they’re taxed
They can hardly afford to buy hand-me-down slacks

You must still be wondering “Why are you here?”
Because, patient stranger, you’ve reason to fear
I’m sure that to your ears “the rovers” are new
I promise, my friend, they have heard about you

The people and toads have been getting upset
It’s justice they want and it’s justice they’ll get
They’re sick of the filth and the muck and the grime
They’re gathering, planning, and biding their time

I’ve been ‘neath the streets and these people I’ve seen
They’re strong, with big arms, and they’re terribly mean
I warn you, pedestrian, should they rebel
They’ll rise from below and will make your life hell

You’ve got just two options, according to me
You can round up your wares and your family and flee
Or stay where you are, and prepare for a change
For living with rovers above ground is strange

You must treat them kindly and offer them milk
They won’t ask for treasures like silver or silk
Fair treatment and rights are the bounty they want
Plus minimum wage and a fair workers’ comp

Though you’ve never seen them, these rights they have earned
My goal was to teach you, I hope that you learned
Enough from my ramble to know what will come
When the rovers resurface in search of the sun