Submissions by Ahavati

Thinking I would suffocate from heat, or dehydrate
into a shriveled leaf, I wanted to crawl under a rock
as those little animals in the desert, content
to watch the world turn when I felt you cross over.

When rain came I was wanton to drown—
allow mud to engulf my shoulders, blocking
sound to sleep so I could join you, rolling
through light as milkweed until we were home.
 
Yet, just as heat is abated by rain, thus is rain
by heat, always in time to push the clock forward
another minute. How easily my hands could...

The wind is a trapped bird entangled in distance,
a refugee gull blown inland by a category two storm.
That angers her, because in younger years
it would take a five to separate her from the shore.  
 
She hovers over McDonalds and Rite Aid for processed energy
to sustain her flight home, diving for concrete water life:  
fries rolling like eels between cars and hamburger buns  
opening like clams from warm-waves of the sun.  
 
Sometimes resentment gives way to memory: hermit crabs,
platoons of foam capturing the beach and...

1.

Not everything feels safe and secure, least of all
the arms of the poem. It takes a great deal of trust
sitting in the passenger's seat of the verse. There is no time
to consult the Ouija Board or Tarot Deck; we'll miss the bus
and succumb to the mundane in a cold, New York minute.

The poet isn't licensed to drive anymore than the muse. If we
try we'll both get lost and constantly fight. Driving the poem
would be something like misreading a foreign road sign
that actually meant "STUPID TOURIST". We'll get it
half-right at best;...

All the great sadnesses, great temptations,
and great mistakes are almost always
the result of loneliness.”
-- José Saramago, Margaret Jull Costa

In the end we all become graves,
our differences united by the same
neglect of weeds and immense
necropolis whose swathed residents
observe from quiet encasements.

Beyond our mounds will spread
giant limbs of balboa, tapping
like trapped hangers behind closet
doors casting macabre shadows
across plastic flowers and dirt.

Visitors and memories are decimated ...