Flying Island

Reader Desperately Seeking Poem I. I am looking for a long-term  fling. I am looking to throw  you against the silences; I am looking  to be flung  into the center of Merriam-Webster, and to climb my way out, assay over Titmal . I am looking for you to start with a whisper, a rattle, a buzz, a breathy  death-shake, and then whisk  me away to a mythic field of lambs with phosphorus mouths. And after I have tumbled out of the vehicle,  lost my way, and been found, filthy and panting, you must bear me back to the closing  ratta-tatta-tat , crescendo-ing  into hot, fluffy blossoms over the top of a popcorn bowl. And finish—confusingly, inevitably—  by flinging all the kernels into the sky, for misshapen stars, fourth-degree kisses. II. In return, I promise to press flesh against page, my fingerprints against your lines, your open spine against my breasts, the rhythm of my in-and-out  to the blues of your stillness. . . . I pr...

Kitchen Romance Leave the dozen roses to their cellophane sleeve. Bring me instead a bouquet of late summer produce: the folded hands of the last lettuce leaves; the vintage tomatoes blushing purple, yellow, oranges at even the hint of sauce. Let lemon cukes roll joyous in the bushel basket, carousing with potatoes the size of solstice hail. Turn your head, but watch from the corner of your eye as the zucchini and yellow squash neck like geese. Tuck in tomatillos to await my fingers divesting them of their paper- lantern jackets. Serve me strawberries by the bleeding handful, and I will fill your mouth with blackberries from a handkerchief stained beyond salvation. Whisper every unspeakable unspoken that is the Vidalia.   And let fan the jungle stalks of rainbow chard, not cooling this mad air of August, but stirring it everywhere about. Bethany Brengan ’s poetry has appeared in various publications, including Contemporary...

Working Tune: A Catholicon I step forward on my left foot, and my left foot says: “Things fall apart the center cannot hold.” I step forward on my right foot, and my right foot says:             “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” If the apocalypse arrives tomorrow, and the Lord lifts his few, fortunate faithful on invisible wires; if Cinderella makes it to the ball in a dress like the sun and impossible slippers— or if the apocalypse arrives tomorrow, and we are left quaking under wars and rumors of wars; and Cinderella must sort seeds, without help (because all the birds have died), in the blood-light of the moon— or if tomorrow the gears of the world don’t fall off, and the mills of the gods still grind to their tedious gain; and we all awake covered in the gray stars of last night’s ashes— even then we must remember to water our mother’s grave, tend her trees, ...