Golden Retrievals

by Mark Doty

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh
joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back,

or else you’re off in some fog concerning
—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.

from Sweet Machine: Poems. Copyright © 1998 by Mark Doty.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.

No More Cake Here

by Natalie Diaz

When my brother died
I worried there wasn’t enough time
to deliver the one hundred invitations
I’d scribbled while on the phone with the mortuary:
Because of the short notice no need to rsvp.
Unfortunately the firemen couldn’t come.
(I had hoped they’d give free rides on the truck.)
They did agree to drive by the house once
with the lights on— It was a party after all.

I put Mom and Dad in charge of balloons,
let them blow as many years of my brother’s name,
jails, twenty-dollar bills, midnight phone calls,
fistfights, and er visits as they could let go of.
The scarlet balloons zigzagged along the ceiling
like they’d been filled with helium. Mom blew up
so many that she fell asleep. She slept for ten years—
she missed the whole party.

My brothers and sisters were giddy, shredding
his stained T-shirts and raggedy pants, throwing them up
into the air like confetti.

When the clowns came in a few balloons slipped out
the front door. They seemed to know where
they were going and shrank to a fistful of red grins
at the end of our cul-de-sac. The clowns played toy bugles
until the air was scented with rotten raspberries.
They pulled scarves from Mom’s ear—she slept through it.
I baked my brother’s favorite cake (chocolate, white frosting).
When I counted there were ninety-nine of us in the kitchen.
We all stuck our fingers in the mixing bowl.

A few stray dogs came to the window.
I heard their stomachs and mouths growling
over the mariachi band playing in the bathroom.
(There was no room in the hallway because of the magician.)
The mariachis complained about the bathtub acoustics.
I told the dogs, No more cake here, and shut the window.
The fire truck came by with the sirens on. The dogs ran away.
I sliced the cake into ninety-nine pieces.

I wrapped all the electronic equipment in the house,
taped pink bows and glittery ribbons to them—
remote controls, the Polaroid, stereo, Shop-Vac,
even the motor to Dad’s work truck—everything
my brother had taken apart and put back together
doing his crystal meth tricks—he’d always been
a magician of sorts.

Two mutants came to the door.
One looked almost human. They wanted
to know if my brother had willed them the pots
and pans and spoons stacked in his basement bedroom.
They said they missed my brother’s cooking and did we
have any cake. No more cake here, I told them.
Well, what’s in the piñata? they asked. I told them
God was and they ran into the desert, barefoot.
I gave Dad his slice and put Mom’s in the freezer.
I brought up the pots and pans and spoons
(really, my brother was a horrible cook), banged them
together like a New Year’s Day celebration.

My brother finally showed up asking why
he hadn’t been invited and who baked the cake.
He told me I shouldn’t smile, that this whole party was shit
because I’d imagined it all. The worst part he said was
he was still alive. The worst part he said was
he wasn’t even dead. I think he’s right, but maybe
the worst part is that I’m still imagining the party, maybe
the worst part is that I can still taste the cake.

from When My Brother Was an Aztec. Copyright © 2012 by Natalie Diaz.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.

excerpt from The Body in August

by Robin Coste Lewis

…

I believe in that road that is infinite and black and goes on blindly forever. I
believe crocodiles swallow rocks to help them digest crab. Because up until
the twentieth century, people could still die from sensation. And because
my hunger is so deep, I am ashamed to lift my head.

…

from VOYAGE OF THE SABLE VENUS AND OTHER POEMS by Robin Coste Lewis, copyright 2015 by Robin Coste Lewis. Published by Alfred A. Knopf.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.

My Father in English

by Richard Blanco

First half of his life lived in Spanish: the long syntax
of las montañas that lined his village, the rhyme
of sol with his soul–a Cuban alma–that swayed
with las palmas, the sharp rhythm of his machete
cutting through caña, the syllables of his canarios
that sung into la brisa of the island home he left
to spell out the second half of his life in English–
the vernacular of New York City, sleet, neon, glass–
and the brick factory where he learned to polish
steel twelve hours a day. Enough to save enough
to buy a used Spanish-English dictionary he kept
bedside like a Bible–studied fifteen new words
after his prayers each night, then practiced them
on us the next day: Buenos días, indeed, my family.
Indeed más coffee. Have a good day today, indeed–
and again in the evening: Gracías to my bella wife,
indeed, for dinner. Hicistes tu homework, indeed?
La vida is indeed dificil. Indeed did indeed become
his favorite word which, like the rest of his new life,
he never quite grasped: over-used and misused often
to my embarrassment. Yet the word I most learned
to love him through: indeed, the exile who
tried to master the language to chose to master him, 
indeed, the husband who refused to say I love you
in English to my mother, the man who died without
true translation. Indeed, meaning: in fact/en efecto,
meaning: in reality/de hecho, meaning to say now
what I always meant to tell him in both languages:
thank you/gracías for surrendering the past tense
of your life so that I might conjugate myself here
in the present of this country, in truth/asi es, indeed.

from HOW TO LOVE A COUNTRY, copyright Richard Blanco 2019. Published by Beacon Press.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.

Love letter

by Donika Kelly

I wake each morning.
And am disappointed in the waking.

In the evening, in the hours before sleep,
I drag canyons into my forearms, dredge

the little tributaries of mud and fish.
These pits and hollows make a mess of everything

they touch. I am feeling, spooling
away from what holds muscle to bone.

Tumbling from what holds me to the world.
O, to do away with the meat and light of me.

from BESTIARY: POEMS by Donika Kelly. Published by Graywolf Press. Copyright 2016 by Donika Kelly.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.