August poem

unmade places, people, poems.

The bed is unmade and so am I. I crouch low to sweep
broken glass off the floor, the crushed pieces shimmering
in the dustpan. Clumsy hands, I have never been too good
at holding things. The slippery days slid through my fingers
and now it is August. Plaintive light, sedating, like the feeling
of lying down in the ocean at sundown. August came to me
like a song playing from another room. I hum along. The words
are all unfinished. I sweep up fragments of August. The heart
settles like loose dust after rain. I no longer flinch at shatterings.
If I reached towards the sky and peeled back a flap of timespace,
I would find beneath it another August. One from my childhood,
somehow indistinguishable from this one. The same prying sun.
The urge to sit on the floor for hours and paint with my fingers.
The sheets in a twisting coil on my bed, accidentally beautiful.
No matter the year, August moves strange and tender. A poem
falling through my hands, moments before breaking.

Stuff I read this week:

• Each Morning I Reassemble My Face: By Hussein Al-Dahir, translated by Dalal Isaac

• Cul-de-Sac by Andrea Cohen

• Maya C. Popa’s curation of poetry:

  Poems for Your Weekend

  

  

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  I’ll be back with more poetry next week. Until then, take care.