Every Day Poems

A Poem A Day

Love Poems

For Donovan by Sarah O’Brien

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For Donovan

by Sarah O’Brien

Your pants are made from the softest fabric.
You challenge me to a game of chess.
“You didn’t use your Queen enough,” you say
after winning, and I soak in this metaphor.

I was too focused on someone else’s King.
I overlooked mine—left you exposed.
Your wounds from her violence linger,
and you mistrust even me.

I ask my angels for a deeper patience.
I resist the tendencies of Past Sarah,
fearful of abandonment and change.
In a dream, we convene and toast disaster.

I press my lips gently against your arm.
You recoil at some of my touches, after her.
Sorrowful pavement, I rebuild our road.
I invite you over for a home-cooked meal.

 

Sarah O’Brien is a poet from Massachusetts. She is the author of Shapeshifter and Just for Us (forthcoming 2023). Sarah teaches, makes art, and performs comedy in Nebraska currently. She cares for three black cats. Follow her on social media @fluent_saracasm.

In Your Apartment for the First Time in Months by James Croal Jackson

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In Your Apartment for the First Time in Months by James Croal Jackson

In your red dress you ask what you want
me to say to you but Lagunitas sips
the words I wanted in June out of me
leaving only amber hops & honey
to ooze from my mouth. You spit
a tumbleweed toward the wall
& it sticks. You say all I wanted
was to know you. Here I sink
into the quicksand of tan
leather couch. This house
was once full of orange lotuses.
We would burst flame
into bloom in the rooms
we set ablaze.

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James Croal Jackson is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in Columbia Journal, Rattle, Hobart, FLAPPERHOUSE, and elsewhere. He edits The Mantle from Columbus, Ohio. Find him at jimjakk.com and @jimjakk.

pantoum for the parting by Nkateko Masinga

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pantoum for the parting

by Nkateko Masinga

what a mess i will leave you with
none the wiser, mass of fragility
baby girl, my face in miniature
turn the ache into architecture

none the wiser, mass of fragility
grow smart like mama, eloquent
turn the ache into architecture
speeches at presidential suites

grow smart like mama, eloquent
your father’s height, dizzy spins
speeches at presidential suites
hopelessly enchant the masses

your father’s height, dizzy spins
baby girl, my face in miniature
hopelessly enchant the masses
what a mess i will leave you with

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Nkateko Masinga is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of three poetry collections: ‘The Sin In My Blackness’ (2015). ‘A War Within The Blood’ (2016) and ‘While The World Was Burning’ (2017). Her work has been published in the 2017 edition of U.S journal ‘Illuminations’ and she is a 2019 Fellow of the Ebedi International Writers Residency.

Your Fallow Fingers by Kika Dorsey

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Your Fallow Fingers

by Kika Dorsey

Your days fall into grass and fallen suns,
no man as broken and careless as you.
So many days I felt burnt and done,
while stars stood in place and the moon ensued

its sinking truth. Autumn strips the land
of green and geese, body defeated earth.
On the shore children mold turtles out of sand
from fire you flung from skies to melt and birth

the glass that only I can break. My hips
a red hum and the garden sleeps, rests
its weary ghost, while I trace red, your lips
to build a castle, where I reach up to wrest

the weapon from your large, loud embrace,
your fallow fingers, your sun’s shattered face.

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Kika Dorsey is a poet in Boulder, Colorado, and lives with her two children, husband, and Border Collie. She wakes up every morning and crafts poetry out of dreams, myths, her body, and her travels. While finishing her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in Seattle, Washington, she performed her poetry with musicians and artists. Her poems have been published in The Denver Quarterly, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Comstock Review, Freshwater, The Columbia Review, among numerous other journals and books. . Her collection of poems, Beside Herself , was published by Flutter Press. Her full-length collection, Rust, came out with Word Tech Editions in 2016.  Her forthcoming book, Coming Up For Air, comes out in 2018. She is an adjunct instructor of English at Front Range Community College. When not writing or teaching, she taxis her teenagers to activities, swims miles in pools, and runs and hikes in the open space of Colorado’s mountains and plains.

The Vulnerability Accident by Tara Rigg

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The Vulnerability Accident BY TARA RIGG

The Vulnerability Accident

by Tara Rigg

I poured out my heart and it spilled onto the floor.

We stood

looking at it for a while.

Eventually,

I wiped it up with paper towels

as she watched.

Every visit after that

We both remembered the mess

I’d made on the floor.

But she never mentioned it.

She didn’t want to be rude.

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Tara Rigg writes about the complexities, joys, and misunderstandings of grief. She gratefully breathes in the mountain air surrounding her home in Bozeman, Montana where she lives with her husband and three young daughters. Her son, Beau, was stillborn in 2014. Find more at www.TaraRigg.com.