Poems – Poetry International Online

Without Her

“her fine long tail waving a thin farewell/as both flew away from my life.” | by Katharyn Howd Machan

“since we couldn’t just walk across a lake,/the bed of it cracked now, bed of it dust,//dance partner of the wind” | by Rob Carney

“The dragonfly tilted its wings, curved its tail, / Your fingers as thin as a pier’s posts.” | by Nguyễn Quyén

“if flowers fruit / there will be seeds of pure tears.” | by Ý Nhi

“I looked at her / back, strong like hairy bear that kills / a bull even when she’s drunk, and I understood:” | by Hu Xudong

“…Every back, / it seems, is a blood neighbor” | Kwame Dawes

“But what about all the modest / neglected deities–the overlooked” | by Ellen Bass

“I’m standing/on the edge of nothing, with a handkerchief,” | by Emily Berry

“high into the air— / a song to slice the sky open, so he sang” | by Michael Trocchia

“and the outsized appetites/I am shedding bit by bit” | by Katherine Towler

“The dish confines, / efficiently clasps without limbs.” | by Laura Hogan

“I have apprenticed myself to light,/to the way it moves through the world” | by Emily Portillo

“The pond rises and sways, wind-rippled/a gelatinous mirror ball waiting to fall” | by Daniel Zeiders

“Our house was a seabed of alien vines/reaching to touch the windowsills.” | by Emily Leithauser

“Yet, to love her this way is to love the blue of distances” | by Jody Rambo

“my son/can recognize Michael’s voice/anywhere” | by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

“It demands to be/ known. The gnats/ in their conductor’s/ dance.” | by Jordan Pérez

“The men’s experiment: to see if the righthand / claw, removed, might grow back.” | by Jordan Pérez

“the nighttime grass/at eight years old,/run through with/starlight” | by K.T. Landon

“I knew better than to protest/but my shoulders sloped/like the sides of the valley” | by Laura Voivodeship