TWO POEMS by SAM BOVARD

The Goose  

The rain has started to fall upwards, droplets 

running from rivulets up the gutters,  

making quite the opposite of the sound  

they made coming down. The clouds chuckle  

and blossom, swelling and blowing away.  

The chicks are crawling back into their shells, 

sealing the cracks with their translucent  

beaks. The light leaves from your body 

to the lamp. Everything, it seems, is backwards  

today. I am not sadness, I am its leaving 

as it’s coming. Confusing, isn’t it? Leaves grow  

unnoticeably smaller, fans spin in the other  

direction, ants follow the ant behind them.  

The Goose tattooed on your leg has started to  

flutter away from your skin. Mary Oliver  

begins to dig her way out of the ground.  

The only way to walk forward is to  

step backwards, and to sleep is to be awake.  

Oh Goose, why did it have to be today?


Day 16  

Oh Mary I’ve been so unwell 

I’ve been missing you more than  

ever, though you never claimed

to know me. My leg throbs

and I can’t make it stop.  

 

I feel entirely transparent at times,  

like a glass frog, my organs exposed,  

tiny intestines moving tiny food, 

a tiny heart beating with tiny desires  

pressing against the windowpane of my skin. 

 

Please open up the grave, let me  

just whisper one more secret into 

your ear, we all are in need  

of a friend with sealed lips.


Sam Bovard (he/him) is a gay poet and MFA student at The University of Montana. He writes about encounters and grief, and the powerful intimacy of both. Follow him on Twitter @SamBovard

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THREE POEMS by HOWARD KAPLAN

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A STORY by SASHA FOX CARNEY