The Best American Poetry 2019 Read online

  represents an animal swan. His

  brain is the water the animal

  swan once swam in, holds

  everything, but when thawed, all

  the fish disappear. Most of the

  words we say have something to

  do with fish. And when they’re

  gone, they’re gone.

  from The Kenyon Review

  CHEN CHEN

  * * *

  I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party

  In the invitation, I tell them for the seventeenth time

  (the fourth in writing), that I am gay.

  In the invitation, I include a picture of my boyfriend

  & write, You’ve met him two times. But this time,

  you will ask him things other than can you pass the

  whatever. You will ask him

  about him. You will enjoy dinner. You will be

  enjoyable. Please RSVP.

  They RSVP. They come.

  They sit at the table & ask my boyfriend

  the first of the conversation starters I slip them

  upon arrival: How is work going?

  I’m like the kid in Home Alone, orchestrating

  every movement of a proper family, as if a pair

  of scary yet deeply incompetent burglars

  is watching from the outside.

  My boyfriend responds in his chipper way.

  I pass my father a bowl of fish ball soup—So comforting,

  isn’t it? My mother smiles her best

  Sitting with Her Son’s Boyfriend

  Who Is a Boy Smile. I smile my Hurray for Doing

  a Little Better Smile.

  Everyone eats soup.

  Then, my mother turns

  to me, whispers in Mandarin, Is he coming with you

  for Thanksgiving? My good friend is & she wouldn’t like

  this. I’m like the kid in Home Alone, pulling

  on the string that makes my cardboard mother

  more motherly, except she is

  not cardboard, she is

  already, exceedingly my mother. Waiting

  for my answer.

  While my father opens up

  a Boston Globe, when the invitation

  clearly stated: No security

  blankets. I’m like the kid

  in Home Alone, except the home

  is my apartment, & I’m much older, & not alone,

  & not the one who needs

  to learn, has to—Remind me

  what’s in that recipe again, my boyfriend says

  to my mother, as though they have always, easily

  talked. As though no one has told him

  many times, what a nonlinear slapstick meets

  slasher flick meets psychological

  pit he is now co-starring in.

  Remind me, he says

  to our family.

  from Poem-a-Day

  LEONARD COHEN

  * * *

  Drank a Lot

  i drank a lot. i lost my job.

  i lived like nothing mattered.

  then you stopped, and came across

  my little bridge of fallen answers.

  i don’t recall what happened next.

  i kept you at a distance.

  but tangled in the knot of sex

  my punishment was lifted.

  and lifted on a single breath—

  no coming and no going—

  o G-d, you are the only friend

  i never thought of knowing.

  your remedies beneath my hand

  your fingers in my hair

  the kisses on our lips began

  that ended everywhere.

  and now our sins are all confessed

  our strategies forgiven

  it’s written that the law must rest

  before the law is written.

  and not because of what i’d lost

  and not for what i’d mastered

  you stopped for me, and came across

  the bridge of fallen answers.

  tho’ mercy has no point of view

  and no one’s here to suffer

  we cry aloud, as humans do:

  we cry to one another.

  And now it’s one, and now it’s two,

  And now the whole disaster.

  We cry for help, as humans do—

  Before the truth, and after.

  And Every Guiding Light Was Gone

  And Every Teacher Lying—

  There Was No Truth In Moving On—

  There Was No Truth In Dying.

  And Then The Night Commanded Me

  To Enter In Her Side—

  And Be As Adam Was To Eve

  Before The Great Divide.

  her remedies beneath my hand

  her fingers in my hair—

  and every mouth of hunger glad—

  and deeply unaware.

  and here i cannot lift a hand

  to trace the lines of beauty,

  but lines are traced, and beauty’s glad

  to come and go so freely.

  and from the wall a grazing wind,

  weightless and routine—

  it wounds us as i part your lips

  it wounds us in between.

  and every guiding light was gone

  and every sweet direction—

  the book of love i read was wrong

  it had a happy ending.

  And Now There Is No Point Of View—

  And Now There Is No Other—

  We Spread And Drown As Lilies Do—

  We Spread And Drown Forever.

  You are my tongue, you are my eye,

  My coming and my going.

  O G-d, you let your sailor die

  So he could be the ocean.

  And when I’m at my hungriest

  She takes away my tongue

  And holds me here where hungers rest

  Before the world is born.

  And fastened here we cannot move

  We cannot move forever

  We spread and drown as lilies do—

  From nowhere to the center.

  Escaping through a secret gate

  I made it to the border

  And call it luck—or call it fate—

  I left my house in order.

  And now there is no point of view—

  And now there is no other—

  We spread and drown as lilies do—

  We spread and drown forever.

  Disguised as one who lived in peace

  I made it to the border

  Though every atom of my heart

  Was burning with desire.

  from The New Yorker

  LAURA CRONK

  * * *

  Like a Cat

  You want a dog

  but you are like a cat,

  though you hate cats,

  which is a very catlike

  position. I want a cat

  but you’re allergic

  so we’ll get a dog

  who will be like me.

  Besides, I realize that,

  having you, I already

  have a cat. You have

  intense fixations, like

  a cat. Though you’re

  tall and strong, you walk

  lightly on the balls

  of your feet, like a cat.

  You’re good at

  everything you ever

  try to do. In your

  reticence you’d rather

  not be written about or

  analyzed, like a cat.

  But you are very good

  to look at, to study,

  in your many moods

  and attitudes, like a cat.

  And your affection

  is sudden and real,

  radiating mystery

  and heat beside me,

  like a cat.

  from STAT®REC

  KATE DANIELS

  * * *

  Metaphor-l
ess

  The dryness dead center

  Of deep pain. The bone on

  Bone grinding that goes on

  For months preceding

  The surgery—that’s the way

  The parent whose child is using

  Heroin again feels in the middle

  Of the night unable to sleep, standing

  At the bedroom window, looking out

  Just barely conscious of what the moon

  Looks like—drained, gray. The moon

  Is a popular literary image—solipsistic

  Misery, misplaced love. Whatever.

  Tonight, it’s nothing but a source

  Of milky light, swinging high up in the sky

  Shining weakly on the bleakness inside

  And the bleakness outside that has

  No other meaning but the cold

  Un-crackable rock of itself.

  from Five Points

  CARL DENNIS

  * * *

  Armed Neighbor

  I don’t want to deny him the right to turn

  His homestead into a fortress better prepared

  For a siege than the Alamo. But I do wish

  I could persuade him no columns of federal marshals

  Are preparing to march from town to convert his property

  Into a dark-site prison or a welfare hotel

  For a mob of migrants too lazy

  To make a homestead of their own.

  I do wish I could persuade him he’s lucky

  That we live in an era where foot-thick walls

  And narrow slits for windows have gone the way

  Of the moat and drawbridge, an era when many neighbors,

  Instead of hardening their perimeters,

  Are blurring the boundaries between inside and outside

  With elaborate decks and porches.

  If safety is his concern, I’d like to convince him

  He’d be better off investing in burglar alarms

  And in cameras programmed to keep a record

  Of all the cars that park near his property, so if

  A couple of burglars wait till he leaves for work

  To break in and steal his gun collection

  He could give the police all the clues they needed

  To solve the case in less than a day.

  As for the pistol he’s been taking to work for years

  In a holster that isn’t hidden, I don’t accuse him

  Of trying to mask with a symbol of power

  A deep-seated feeling of insignificance.

  I believe what he claims, that he hopes to save

  Some fellow workers one day from a maniac

  Running amok with a gun on the factory floor.

  But I wish I could convince him it’s just as likely

  That one day a maniac will snatch at his gun

  As he walks alone after work to his car,

  That the gun will go off in the struggle

  And the bullet, if it doesn’t undo him, may undo a girl

  Who happens that very moment to be playing hopscotch

  Across the street in front of her tenement.

  No doubt if I persuade him to leave his gun

  At home, at least for a trial period,

  On his usual foot patrol after supper

  Around the neighborhood, he’ll feel enfeebled,

  Powerless to protect a neighbor from a menace

  Should any creep near as night comes on.

  But I’ll assure him he may still be able

  To offer assistance in emergencies.

  Say he spots a glow in the sky

  And follows it to a house in flames.

  A gun would only get in the way

  Of his dashing in to wake any sleepers

  And carry a child out to a neighbor’s lawn.

  And if the parents carry the children

  While he’s left with a hamster cage or a fish bowl,

  I’d like him to feel the task isn’t beneath him.

  Lending a hand, I’d tell him, is always dignified,

  While being a hero is incidental.

  from New Letters

  TOI DERRICOTTE

  * * *

  An apology to the reader

  Let me first say that I regret sending the document out into the world. And I regret that (it having fallen into your hands) I am asking you to read it. However, having—by turns—abandoned and revised it for years, I decided it should be—even must be—given space.

  I do this not as a performance of brutality to which I need your witness. I do it because it must exist as a reflection of its contrary. In my body the memories are lodged. The writing is a dim bulb on a black cord in the examiner’s room.

  I prefer you do not attempt to read it. I cannot help but feel responsible for your discomfort, so, as you read, you may feel me tugging at your fingers. The revelations are relentless, without a whisper of hope. (Without hope, what gives the poet permission?)

  Completing a work of art necessitates a struggle to create balance and symmetry. I have been hampered by an idea of perfection. I have struggled to please one who mirrors back my unworthiness. But poetry is visceral; it re-creates the most primal sense of entitlement to breath and music, to life itself.

  I have fixed together an internal form, like a tailor’s bodice. I wear it as a self, stiff but useful, stitched together from scraps.

  from Prairie Schooner

  THOMAS DEVANEY

  * * *

  Brilliant Corners

  for Jennie C. Jones

  The magic parts before they were burned-up and vacuumed.

  A sound so light as if no one was there at all.

  Your body a buffer between the same word said at the same time and other hyper jinx chances.

  The dustup made the light look more grey than green.

  Time was opened-up wider then, so wide in fact that even now it isn’t all the way shut.

  Horns, sirens, acoustic panels, plenty of three people can keep a secret, if two are dead stories to go around.

  A late and great string quartet playing in the next room.

  I couldn’t tell where the music was coming from, and I didn’t care.

  I was back in high school practicing a clarinet concerto.

  And for months, upended by the harp on the headphones in the Chopin waltz.

  Walkman freewheeling Sony Walkman—

  And only one other person in the world.

  It does not matter where we fell in, we did.

  What she called AC/DC I called AC/DC. Though Monk wasn’t Monk, he was MONK: avuncular, like an uncle with no glass in his glasses, poking his fingers in to show us.

  Not silence, but the stillness of the world; and yet even being still didn’t mean you couldn’t scratch your nose.

  How you once heard the sound of water running under a heavy manhole cover. The Great Spirit echoing in the old city pipes; the ghost river running under Allegheny Avenue.

  Not sound, but the fact of sound.

  Not sound or the fact of sound, but the fact of sound after the sound was gone.

  from The Brooklyn Rail

  NATALIE DIAZ

  * * *

  Skin-Light

  My whole life I have obeyed it—

  its every hunting. I move beneath it

  as a jaguar moves, in the dark

  liquid blading of shoulder.

  The opened-gold field and glide of the hand,

  light-fruited, and scythe-lit.

  I have come to this god-made place—

  Teotlachco, the ball court—

  because the light called: lightwards!

  and dwells here: Lamp-Land.

  We touch the ball of light

  to one another—split bodies desire-knocked

  and stroked bright.

  Light reshapes my lover’s elbow,

  a brass whistle.

  I put my mouth there—mercy-luxed, and come, we both,

  to
light. It streams me.

  A rush of scorpions—

  fast-light. A lash of breath—

  god-maker.

  Light horizons her hip—springs an ocelot

  cut of chalcedony and magnetite.

  Hip, limestone and cliffed,

  slopes like light into her thigh—light-box, skin-bound.

  Wind sways the calabash,

  disrupts the light to ripple—light-struck,

  then scatter.

  This is the war I was born toward, her skin,

  its lake-glint. I desire—I thirst.

  To be filled—light-well.

  The light throbs everything, and songs

  against her body, girdling the knee bone.

  Our bodies—light-harnessed, light-thrashed.

  The bruising: bilirubin bloom,

  violet.

  A work of all good yokes—blood-light—

  to make us think the pain is ours

  to keep, light-trapped, lanterned.

  That I asked for it. That I own it—

  lightmonger.

  I am light now, or on the side of light—

  light-head, light-trophied.

  Light-wracked and light-gone.

  Still, the sweet maize—an eruption

  of light, or its feast,

  from the stalk

  of my lover’s throat.

  And I, light-eater, light-loving.

  from Poem-a-Day

  JOANNE DOMINIQUE DWYER

  * * *

  Decline in the Adoration of Jack-in-the-Pulpits

  The bijou Jack-in-the-Pulpit plant

  looks like it’s kneeling in dirt on dragon

  knees in comparative darkness; conjures

  a frocked man propagandizing at an altar;

  if ingested raw its hooded bloom is poison—

  Even so it’s a part of paradise that won’t survive behind glass.

  What happens will go down in history as fable.

  No one takes baths in the placid dark anymore.

  There are too few hatmakers left.

  Almost no silence to be found.