Four nights in, I still don’t know his name. And each kiss

is the aftertaste of pills, a white cloud on the tongue. He hates

the names I give him: Tantalus, Orestes, Ganymede. I don’t

need a name he says, sky-high in the shower, the birds leaking

into stains on his stomach. Orange bottle in hand,

I answer Hyacinth and Vicodin. I answer Xanax and Zephyr.

- Saeed Jones

The most beautiful part of your body

is wherever your mother's shadow falls.

- Ocean Vuong

You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

- Seamus Heaney

Dark matter 

Rebecca Elson

Above a pond, 

An unseen filament 

Of spider’s floss 

Suspends a slowly 

Spinning leaf.

My bingo cards are empty, because I’m not paying attention.

I can’t hear the numbers, because something inward is being given

substance.

- Henri Cole

Lately, remembering anything involves an ability

to forget something else. Watching the news,

I writhe and moan; my mind is not itself.

- Henri Cole

He was doing lines on a mirror and had sugar spots on his nose.

It made him seem focused, with a conversational prowess.

I was in some kind of low-oxygen dead zone. You flee or suffocate.

Only jellies survive. Maybe I was afraid of emptiness—horror

vacui.

- Henri Cole

My lips were not yet content

with stillness. We were on our way home

from a nightclub. I adore you, Miguel moaned,

but have to return now. Remember

death ends a life, not a relationship.

- Henri Cole

I stayed silent for many years.

Nothing came of it —

neither good,

nor evil.

- Ryszard Krynicki

Cats

Ryszard Krynicki

The Lord God got cats right—

Wisława Szymborska sometimes says.

Sometimes she adds: Only.

Sometimes: The best.

Silent, soaring,

early autumn light

glowed past the window.

I miss you.

- Ryszard Krynicki