Momma Said (Monday Poem)

by Calvin Forbes

 

The slice I ate I want it back
Those crumbs I swept up
I’d like my share again
I can still taste it like it was

The memory by itself is delicious
Each bite was a small miracle
Both nourishing and sweet
I wish I had saved just a little bit

I know it wasn’t a literal cake
It’s the thought that counts
Like a gift that’s not store-bought
Making it even more special 

Like a dream that makes you
Want to go back to sleep
You can’t have your cake
And eat it too Momma said

I was defiant and hardheaded
And answered yes I can too
The look she gave me said boy
I hope you aren’t a fool all your life

from Poetry (July 2011)

 

Makin' Jump Shots (Monday Poem)

by Michael S. Harper

 

He waltzes into the lane
’cross the free-throw line,
fakes a drive, pivots,
floats from the asphalt turf
in an arc of black light,
and sinks two into the chains.

One on one he fakes
down the main, passes
into the free lane
and hits the chains.

A sniff in the fallen air—
he stuffs it through the chains
riding high:
“traveling” someone calls—
and he laughs, stepping
to a silent beat, gliding
as he sinks two into the chains.

 

Images of Kin, by Michael S. Harper 

University of Illinois Press, 1977

 

Mimesis (Monday Poem)

 By Fady Joudah

 

My daughter

wouldn’t hurt a spider
That had nested

Between her bicycle handles
For two weeks
She waited
Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said
It will simply know
This isn’t a place to call home
And you’d get to go biking

She said that’s how others
Become refugees isn’t it?

from Alight by Fady Joudah

Copper Canyon Press, 2013

Let Evening Come (Monday Poem)

by Jane Kenyon

 

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving   
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   
as a woman takes up her needles   
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   
Let the wind die down. Let the shed   
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   
in the oats, to air in the lung   
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   
be afraid. God does not leave us   
comfortless, so let evening come.

 

 

from Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon

Graywolf Press, 1990