Jonah
Tomaž Šalamun
Jonah how does the sun set?
like snow
what color is the sea?
large
Jonah are you salty?
I’m salty
Jonah are you a flag?
I’m a flag
the fireflies rest now
what are stones like?
green
how do little dogs play?
like flowers
Jonah are you a fish?
I’m a fish
Jonah are you a sea urchin?
I’m a sea urchin
listen to the flow
Jonah is the roe running through the woods
Jonah is the mountain breathing
Jonah is all the houses
have you ever heard such a rainbow?
what is the dew like?
are you asleep?
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A Great Physicist Recalls the Manhattan Project
Kathleen Flenniken
Think of our little group with a map spread out in front of us -
great expanses of the empty west - as if we were new Columbuses.
Think of it - a desert in Washington State. Along the icy blue Columbia.
Think of the caravan of laborers, several hundred a night, unloading at Pasco.
Immense mess halls accommodating thousands. Big band dances.
Beer joints with ground-level windows for tear gas. Constant construction.
When the chain reaction at B-Reactor died that first night,
the mood was excitement and puzzlement. As for whether
I solved the poisoning riddle, let no man be his own judge.
Fermi was there. A marvelous person. One scorching Sunday afternoon,
our group hiked along a rushing irrigation canal. If we jumped in,
how would we get out? Fermi thought our ropes were sissy. The water
dragged him downstream clambering, until he reappeared,
roughed up, shins bleeding. That was Fermi. That’s how he got things done.
I recall a Sunday with the children hiking in the Horse Heaven Hills.
I watched my youngest climb as the sun blazed behind her gold hair
and realized that halos were not a painter’s invention,
but a consequence of nature. Have you ever held plutonium
in your hand? Someone once gave me a piece shaped and nickel-plated
so alpha particles couldn’t reach the skin. It was the temperature, you see,
the element producing heat to keep itself warm - not for ten
or a hundred years, but thousands of years. This is the energy contained
in Hanford’s fuel. I think of that place as a song not properly sung.
A romantic song. And not one person in a hundred knows the tune.
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Delilah
Teach me, he said—
we were lying in bed—
how to care.
I nibbled the purse of his ear.
What do you mean?
Tell me more.
He sat up and reached for his beer
I can rip out the roar
from the throat of a tiger,
or gargle with fire
or sleep one whole night in the Minotaur's lair,
or flay the bellowing fur
from a bear,
all for a dare.
There's nothing I fear.
Put your hand here—
he guided my fingers over the scar
over his heart,
a four-medal wound from the war—
but I cannot be gentle, or loving, or tender.
I have to be strong.
What is the cure?
He fucked me again
until he was sore,
then we both took a shower.
Then he lay with his head on my lap
for a darkening hour;
his voice, for a change, a soft burr
I could just about hear.
And, yes, I was sure
that he wanted to change,
my warrior.
I was there.
So when I felt him soften and sleep,
when he started, as usual, to snore,
I let him slip and slide and sprawl, handsome and huge,
on the floor.
And before I fetched and sharpened my scissors—
snipping first at the black and biblical air—
I fastened the chain to the door.
That's the how and the why and the where.
Then with deliberate, passionate hands
I cut every lock of his hair.
- Carol Ann Duffy
1999
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Memory of the Murdered Professors at the Jagiellonian
After Hasior
They fired a bullet into the head
of each question, trying to kill Kant’s
unending argument with Hegel.
They burned laws, moral codes, &
the Golden Means. Anyone
serving tea & cookies to Death,
looking or acting as if he knew love,
stood before the firing squad.
All questions had to go. Pronoun
or noun. If it crawled on busted kneecaps,
whimpering & begging for mercy,
it was still half of a question.
* * *
The little skyscraper of glass boxes
sunlight strikes the same time of day
at a certain angle outside Zakopane
looks like condos where nimble ghosts
still stand up to the darkest answers.
No, I can’t hear one voice pleading.
But I do hear gusts coming down
from the hills. No, you’re wrong again.
The crow perched on the totem is real.
Look at how the light lifts off its wings,
but I wish I could understand what it is
he’s trying to say. I think I heard a name.
- Yusef Komunyakaa
Poetry, September 2010
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/239960
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Arlene and Esme
In our house we live with Arlene. My little sister has a plan.
She has what they call a beginner’s mind. She sees everything
from an un-given-up perspective. I’m frightened; I know
Arlene better than anyone; she knows me better. Esme says
if I’m scared we can’t win. But I am scared. Arlene drags me
over to the window where the black mould has made
a map of Australia. Australia gives me trouble breathing,
it’s so far away. Arlene points it out and I get the feeling
in my chest, my whole life in there twisted up like a snake.
It could bite me or her. She puts a hand on my breastbone.
You’re not strong. I want to tell her we can look after ourselves.
I want to tell her I’m in charge now, but I can still see the dark
blur at the edges. I don’t sleep anymore, my head is full
of this insomniac light. I lie awake watching over my sisters
and I listen to them breathe. Esme whispers that I should
wake her if I need to. I say I will, but I never do. Even when
I sleep I dream I can’t sleep and I’m standing there looking
down at them, the night pouring from my hands. Esme has
a future in mind. She’s always laughing. She gets up early
and makes buttermilk pancakes using normal milk soured
with lemon juice. She tries things out. Arlene tells us
to stay away from sharp things or we’ll cut ourselves. Esme
does what she likes. She grates apple for a new recipe and
cuts her knuckle and laughs. I don’t know if I can live my life.
I don’t know if I can look after someone as unafraid as Esme.
I don’t know how to change what I do, the way someone
eating soup will, out of habit, bite down. Esme laughs; she’s
serving up apple pancakes with banana and maple syrup
and she says, You are a whole person. A row of mornings fan out.
And the pancakes are sweet and slightly gummy with a salt edge.
- Emily Berry
Poetry, January 2014
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/246990
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