This is an old song, these are old blues

LESTER, BURMA
by: Jesse Bell

For J.Z.

Lester and Burma were speaking gaily. He had encountered her in the hallway. Hello, he said, you certainly are a sight for sore eyes. They proceeded to a room adjoining that hall, where a large window opened onto the street. I would like to have you for supper, said Burma, and took off her dress.

I am appalled, said the doorman to the coachman, and the coachman to the gardener, at the way the young lady dosports herself. You would think she had been brought up better than that.

Burma was wearing no underwear, and her slender body looked very nice on Lester's sofa. He said so. Thank you, said Burma. I swim each day, and use fine oils. Of course you do, said Lester.

What will happen, said Lester's father to Lester's mother, when that boy gets to the big city? Who will he fall in with? Will he return in ten years' time and shower us with gifts and rememberance? Or will he, said Lester's father to Lester's sickly uncle, die from the plague like all his cousins? Perhaps he will take to the sea and become a privateer, with a letter of marque. I would like that, said the uncle. I would like that also, said Lester's father.

A cloud of bees overtook the window and screened the room for a minute. Do you think they'll harm us? asked Lester. Why, no, said Burma, they're just curious. Aren't you ever curious? Yes, quite, said Lester, laying his hand upon her thigh.

The beekeeper paused by his hives. A cloud of bees is missing, he said, to no one in particular. I hpe the little creatures aren't up to any mischief. I hope they return by dark so I can tuck them in their little beds and read them fairy tales.

At any rate, said Lester, we might at least have a look in the bedroom and see what's going on in there. Yes, said Burma, we might at least do that. Just to know for sure. The bedroom door closed softly behind them.

And when the bees returned to their hive, the beekeeper was there with glad tears and an admonishing word. He read them a story from a fine book he'd just bought, in which a boy and girl go to bed together with no other reason than that it is nice to be in bed with a boy and it is nice to be in bed with a girl and it is nice to wake up midway through a life in early evening to the buzzing of bees in an adjoining room

the wonder that holds the stars apart

seamless_Meagan Brothers
Like a broken compass,
I don't know whether you're pushing me away
or pulling me towards.
You seemed so alive then,
so soft and dark
and quiet inside your skeleton.
I never knew how to be still like that.
I wrote your words on my arms,
but I was too clean to get dirty.
 I got skinny,
 but I was too hungry to starve.
The words are pungent and broken on my belly,
but they are alive,
because sometimes you speak to me this way,
with touches and tattoos,
in whispers and shouts
while my hair grows out,
and I remember that you were
broken once, too.
I'm okay, though,
I'm fixed,
you've glued me back
and there are no cracks in sight,
just this
seamless whisper
of your hands
on my shoulders
pushing me or pulling me
in every direction
of you.

When streams are ripe and swelled with rain

Collecting again, a few this time:

DOMESTIC SITUATION | ERNEST HILBERT

Maybe you’ve heard about this. Maybe not.
A man came home and chucked his girlfriend’s cat
In the wood chipper. This really happened.
Dinner wasn’t ready on time. A lot
Of other little things went wrong. He spat
On her father, who came out when he learned
About it. He also broke her pinky,
Stole her checks, and got her sister pregnant.
But she stood by him, stood strong, through it all,
Because she loved him. She loved him, you see.
She actually said that, and then she went
And married him. She felt some unique call.
Don’t try to understand what another
Person means by love. Don’t even bother.


A Working List of Things I Will Never Tell You
by Jon Sands

When I said I wasn’t with another girl
the January after we fell in love for the 3rd time,
it’s because it wasn’t actual sex.

In the February that began our radio silence,
it was actual sex. I hate the tight shirts
that go below your waistline.

Not only do they make you look too young,
but then your torso is a giraffe’s neck attached to tiny legs.
I screamed at myself in the subway

for writing poems about you still.
I made a scene. I think about you almost
each morning, and roughly every five days, I still

believe you’re there.
I still masturbate to you.
When we got really bad,

I would put another coat of mop water on the floor of the bar
to make sure you were asleep when I got to my side of the bed.
You are the only person to whom I’ve lied, knowing

I was telling the truth. I miss the way your neck
wraps around my face like a cave we are both lost in.
I remember when you said being with me

is like being alone with company.
My friend Sarah wrote a poem about pink ponies.
I’m scared you’re my pink pony.

Hers is dead. It is really sad. You’re not dead.
You live in Ohio, or Washington, or Wherever.
You are a shadow my body leaves on other girls.

I have a growing queue of things I know
will make you laugh and I don’t know where to put them.
I mourn like you’re dead. If you had asked me to stay,

I would not have said no.
It would never mean yes.