An Ode to the Transient

Natalie Mazey

Pieces of you are embedded in June so I close my eyes and wait for July to come. But July creeps in slow like honey in my dad’s green tea, like watching your face fall when your mom told you your cat died, my left hand in your right, hers catching your cheek. Because every sunset tastes like Arnold Palmers, and every rainstorm is your hands braiding my hair, us perched on the curb sweaty skin scraping against asphalt faded to gray. Every wish on dandelion fuzz is you, building promises like skyscrapers made of one-way glass, and every car ride smells like cinnamon if I turn the music up, if I turn the air conditioning off, sticky air invading like yellowed honeysuckle, your hand in mine if I hold my breath until song ceases reverberating through speakers. Every time I savor vanilla soft serve covered in cherry slushy, it’s your friends’ laughter mingling with the chirping of cicadas, and every moment I pause on the cracked bench walking home from lily pads and willow trees becomes synonymous with your name.

You are goodbyes at midnight, your neighborhood shrouded in silence, the headlights on my car mimicking stars. You are the best parts of June and the worst of July. You said you’d give me the sun; here I sit, gazing at the moon.

Ochre Andrew Banker

02.06.2023

Drowning Vital fall runs submerged each artery of imagination at the bottom in the silt is she going to the river?

Each week the raindrops conceive new browns in the mud color of leaf and twisted hair and old beer bottle all crusting at the bottom of my boots and streetlights that warp under the surface of memory, dragged up some nights into hard light shapes, still and silent strange when dawn came up reluctant late and then only as evidence of evening that evening was real and not a melted fever and not just the strange air in your lungs It is still fall in certain eyes and certain pools where there are no sunken clouds but moons, round, fat like mangos on black streetlamp branches that twist and gnarl up in the sky

Now fall is sunk under the surface of the water and the earth and will sink deep and deep where all the other falls go, layered Layers of leaves crushed and dry down to the core down to the molten autumn heart of it all new fall rises in the fibers of trees and cocoons in green leaves till it can fly on great cracked copper wings fall gestates above us she is dreaming now of orange starlight hung up in slender black infinities in their long strides to the west

Clementine

Lucy Clementine McNees

What an unsuitable middle name. To be of clemency, of mercy, I suppose is not to be of me.

I must contend that while its definition is unsuitable, I must have always loved it must have felt safe in saying, calling out to myself, Lucy-Clementine. Gentle. Unromantic. Childish.

My middle name did not originate from the Latin word meaning mercy, my middle name came from a nursery rhyme, a lullaby, Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’ Clementine. An unforgettable melody to my parents who weren’t ready to watch me grow into an adult so in my time before self-existence, they gave me a forgettable little word to hold onto and keep me young. This is what I believe. This is why Lucy-Clementine feels safe.

My middle name did not originate from the Latin word meaning gentle, it came from my love of the tiny sour orange fruit. Before I had any awareness of body, I practically ate clementines out of existence dropping scrappy peels on the sidewalk outside my house on Oviatt Street and practicing how to peel an orange in one go. Being a child was holding onto that shell of an orange and not shrinking away in fear at its emptiness. Rather, marveling at its ability to remain whole and beautiful when its insides had been ripped out. Being a child is not to exist in ignorance.

Unless you are incredibly and unwaveringly positive about growth, I think growing up is not an ascent into adulthood but rather a descent into awareness. We lose our ability to forget instead we squeeze the world to its last pulp in search of blame, anything to prove our innocence in a world that discounts guilt anyways. We forget we are forgettable. One day, I forget how to marvel at a perfectly removed orange peel. I forget that to be a hollow orange peel is not to be broken, I forget to marvel at how empty and unromantic and young I am. How much I have yet to fill. Or not.

I can feel my middle name dispersed among the future moments in my life: Clementine is merely an unscheduled event that I will attend at different times, Clementine is young and forgettable, unsuitable for a life of remembering past wrongs and accusations. Clementine is meeting little moments of relief, like the satisfaction of biting into a tiny orange slice and meeting unexpected sweetness.

I suppose I will give myself mercy in preparation for this moment. Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’ Clementine, You are lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Do Not Treat This Poem Differently Colin Massoglia

People are strange when you’re not the same. Who will remember your name if they think you’re deranged?

I get to be lonely when left alone

Life can be pain ful L i v i n g with pain h you try to be kind and thoughtful But think kind of they you’re insane

I do grow strange when treated strangely

Because what I like is not the same because knowing me would be a shame danger they see me as a potential stranger They’d rather I be a perfect

I’m always the stranger alone in the rain only my pain. enraged

I try to change, extending a hand hoping they will understand.

They never ask my name. Eyes turn woeful tongues, wicked When smiles grow ugly I know I’m unwanted. I never asked for this pain to be called strange considered deranged enraged Extra strange Estranged.

Interstices

Skye Newhall after Mary Oliver

I know now the alphabet of crainn*: each letter a sacred piece of connective tissue leading a unique route between our worlds.

I am woven into this interstice, entangled by limbs like heavy thread. I am held between their roots like an infant; finally awake into this copse of unutterable betweenness. Even now, I hear their call: “Stay awhile, go easy, for you are amongst the trees”

*crainn == Irish word for “trees”