Trojan Poetry 72: "Oxygen" by Molly McCully Brown

Oxygen
by Molly McCully Brown

One woman brings her baby to work, walks with him between the aisles
of beds to be sure we are sleeping. She holds him close to her chest.
Sometimes, if the night is calm, she will reach down, touch my hand
as she passes, as if she has forgotten she does not believe I can sense it,
forgotten I was never anyone’s child.

      Wrist: small flawless place on my body;
          second home of my heartbeat.

      Infant: planet of heat; flawless animal;
          what I was meant to become.

      Air: thing that changes temperature,
          tells you when another body is near.

https://mollymccullybrown.com/

Trojan Poetry 71: Valentine's Day Special Edition: Bill Knott's "Sonnet"

Sonnet
by Bill Knott

The way the world is not
Astonished at you
It doesn’t blink a leaf
When we step from the house
Leads me to think
That beauty is natural, unremarkable
And not to be spoken of
Except in the course of things
The course of singing and worksharing
The course of squeezes and neighbors
The course of you tying back your raving hair to go out
And the course of course of me
Astonished at you
The way the world is not



Copyright © 1989 by Bill Knott.

Trojan Poetry 70: Donika Kelly "The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings."

The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings.
by Donika Kelly

I am taken with the hot animal
of my skin, grateful to swing my limbs

and have them move as I intend, though
my knee, though my shoulder, though something
is torn or tearing. Today, a dozen squid, dead

on the harbor beach: one mostly buried,
one with skin empty as a shell and hollow

feeling, and, though the tentacles look soft,
I do not touch them. I imagine they
were startled to find themselves in the sun.

I imagine the tide simply went out
without them. I imagine they cannot

feel the black flies charting the raised hills
of their eyes. I write my name in the sand:
Donika Kelly. I watch eighteen seagulls

skim the sandbar and lift low in the sky.
I pick up a pebble that looks like a green egg.

To the ditch lily I say I am in love.
To the Jeep parked haphazardly on the narrow
street I am in love. To the roses, white

petals rimmed brown, to the yellow lined
pavement, to the house trimmed in gold I am

in love. I shout with the rough calculus
of walking. Just let me find my way back,
let me move like a tide come in.

Copyright © 2017 by Donika Kelly. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 20, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

Trojan Poetry 69: "The Sciences Sing a Lullabye" by Albert Goldbarth

The Sciences Sing a Lullabye
Albert Goldbarth

 Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you’re tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.


Copyright © 2007 by Albert Goldbarth. Reprinted from The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972-2007