Why We Must Struggle

by Kay Ryan

If we have not struggled
as hard as we can
at our strongest
how will we sense
the shape of our losses
or know what sustains
us longest or name
what change costs us,
saying how strange
it is that one sector
of the self can step in
for another in trouble,
how loss activates
a latent double, how
we can feed
as upon nectar
upon need?

from Say Uncle, Grove Press, ©2000

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

After the Long Enduring (for Charles)

by May Sarton

After the long enduring,
The agony of staying alive
With AIDS inside you,

You who noticed everything
With wide-open eyes,
The veins in a leaf or a wrist,
Ladybird on a grass blade at rest,
They told me, “Charles is blind.”
“Blind,” is what they said.

Remember the salamander
You found in the bird bath
One summer,
A vermillion streamer?
The solitary doe at dusk
Stamping and huffing
In the luscious field?
Rilke tells you
With great tenderness,
Einblick, my friend,
Inwardness, in-sight.

published in Poetry, December 1992

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

Toy Boat (for Tamir Rice)

by Ocean Vuong

yellow plastic
black sea

eye-shaped shard
on a darkened map

no shores now
to arrive—or
depart
no wind but
this waiting which
moves you

as if the seconds
could be entered
& never left

toy boat—oarless
each wave
a green lamp
outlasted

toy boat
toy leaf dropped
from a toy tree
waiting

waiting
as if the sp-
arrows
thinning above you
are not
already pierced
by their own names

published in Poetry, April 2016

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

Immigration Interview with Jay Leno

by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

What is your objective?
          To return all the children
          hidden behind the street lamps.

How long do you plan on staying here?
          I don’t understand
          the question.

I said how long do you plan on staying here?
          We would have drowned
          even without our laughter.

Is that really your name?
          Yes, the clothes on the floor
          blossomed like the orchards in spring.

Have you been here before?
          There was a man who knew the way.
          I put his fingers in my mouth
          when he pointed in the direction of the sun.

Who are you wearing?
          The woman gave birth in the dark.
          I thought I felt hands where there were none.

          Everyone dug a useless hole.

Are you alone?
          North was whichever way
          the mannequins were pointing.

          The softest bone was the one
          that burned the longest.

Do you cry at night?
Are you alone right now?

from Cenzontle, BOA Editions, ©2018

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

After the Auction, I Bid You Good-Bye

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

You elbow me with your corduroy jacket
when a box chock-full of antique marbles comes up.
I can’t hear your whispers above the auctioneer’s racket.

The clipped speech of the auctioneer cracked
me up when you impersonated him in bed. Like a wild, thick
        mop
I soak up every copper smell from your corduroy jacket.

In two days, I will drive you to the airport, packed
with other couples pressed tightly at the top
of the escalator. Lines sear my cheek from your corduroy
        jacket

when we hug—then a quick kiss good-bye tacked
on at the end. I’ll finger the rim on the paper coffee cup
you leave in my car. When I hear your name I can’t forget

how your long torso pressed against my bare back,
bluish in this early light. Your fingers shot into me, popped
my spine into a wicked arch. There is no lack

of how it haunts me still—what I bid—lost, sacked
and wrapped for other girls. I should have looked up
to see who else was bidding, but I studied the folds in your
        jacket.
My limit is spent, loud and certain as the auctioneer’s racket.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, “After the Auction, I Bid You Good-Bye” from AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO. Copyright © 2007 by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a poet of color, selected by our members, each day through the month of July.