“Hija de tu madre.” by Elisha Fernandez | Handpicked Wednesday | One Poem Only

All I Have by Rachel Turney after Avalon | One Poem After

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now. ALL I HAVE RACHEL TURNEY after Avalon > All that I have, > I have abandoned. > > I blink like > nothing is > quite right. > > I am pried open, > take away my > oyster treasure. > > All I have. > All I have. > Have. > I. > If, if, if - > then I will say - > why, why, why. > > A lifeguard drowned > at the local college > making me wonder > if absolutely everything > is pointless. > I have the ability to swim, > but does it matter? > Will that save me > in the end? More from Rachel Turney ↓ * @turneytalks [https://www.instagram.com/turneytalks/] on Instagram * Rachel Turney [https://substack.com/@turneytalks] on Substack * Her book, Women Making Soup Together [https://www.vinegarpress.org/store/p/women-making-soup-together-by-rachel-turney-1], is out now with Vinegar Press And now for the poem this was written after. NOT MINE ANYMORE AVALON > If my words are my own > They are all that I have > Except... that’s not quite right > If my words are my own > They abandon me when I most need it > And, that never feels right > My words are my own > And they blink in and out > A lighthouse on the shore > While I’m drowning > My words are my own > And others desperately pry them out of me > A clam with a pearl > A person blinded by the reward > My words are my own > They yearn to hear it > My words are my own > > My words are my- > My words are- > My words- > My words are my own > > I cannot repeat them > Utterance loses meaning > If my words are my own > Why must I give them away? More from Avalon ↓ * @avalonspoems [https://www.instagram.com/avalonspoems/] on Instagram * Her book, Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it weird [https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sorry-i-didnt-mean-to-make-it-weird-avalon-dragoon/1146805295], is available now Support + Stay Connected to OPO If you’d like to support the show, Substack [https://rembrandtscure.substack.com/] and Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/OnePoemOnly] members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook. Poetry shows us what we need. Thank you for being part of the experience.

“Everywhere, a surround of mirror glass blue” by Kay Medway after Amy Laessle-Morgan | One Poem After

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise. Today's poem is by Kay Medway after Amy Laessle-Morgan: Everywhere, a surround of mirror glass blue. River rain, grey, falls from a peak with a stain of rose window, and the stickiness, syrup of a theatre fair. I was held in a bridge moment, thin black iron rail and all, veering from waters to stone. A water thread of moment. Sweetened air, as if by berries, a safe steam of teapot smoke, a tale passed till as a tradition as a wind. More from Kay Medway ↓ * @medwaykay [https://www.instagram.com/medwaykay/] on Instagram And now for the poem this was written after: Butterscotch by Amy Laessle-Morgan: Somewhere between the amberblush streetlight of Division and the butterscotch stain on the back of my throat, there was a glasslike moment nearbent but not yet breaking. Half-formed, honeydrunk on the hour slipping past the soft machinery of becoming unbecoming rewinding rethreading. Warm, butterfat air washing in subtle breathing through the cracked window taxicab teacuplight broken open on my cheek whispering nothing is permanent except the way we almost changed. There was always something burning— toast bridges the last good version of me I kept resuscitating with mouth-to-mouth-watering memory. Tonight, I’ll wear that dress you loved in the color of skinbrushed apologies while the past rides shotgunsilent adjusting the mirror like it still matters how I see myself because when mirrors grow honest the corridors echo less— as everyone pours out. Let us go then, you and I through the goldblood hours where no one teaches you how to bleed pretty— not in the swanpale wrist pressed to cold porcelain tile way half-lit in someone else’s forgetting. You learn it knees to marble cheek to linoleum in radio silence buzzing through your teeth playing love songs that didn’t learn the language. He liked it leaning in disrepair so I sucked the ghostsweet butterscotch slow. I let it split goldenglass hard and sharp the bloom red blooming— behind teeth a salty flood. It cut me— but I didn’t spit it out. I kept it I kept it all. More from Amy Laessle-Morgan ↓ * @ultramarine_poetry [https://www.instagram.com/ultramarine_poetry/] on Instagram * Her book, Live Wire [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GNHHCFGR/ref=asc_df_B0GNHHCFGR1775041200000], is available now. Support + Stay Connected to OPO If you’d like to support the show, Substack [https://rembrandtscure.substack.com/] and Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/OnePoemOnly] members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook. Poetry sustains. Thank you for supporting the podcast.

Hawk Feather by Connie Helena after Peyton Michelle Bryant | One Poem After

A daily reading from One Poem Only—a quiet space for a single poem, read aloud. Today's poem is Hawk Feather by Connie Helena after Peyton Michelle Bryant: Poetess, you made me cry You gave me grief with your words It is not the tequila I promise you Because I drink all the time now You made me remember The odds are against me, against faith I will never love anyone in this life again Most likely this is so (he surely died) Enough of the drama (eye roll) The truth is I have been alone too long To give it up for second best Much less third best, three hundredth best I will only open my hand for the one Who has the power to surprise me No matter how I try to be cynical, jaded I cannot help but wonder Who will call forth the wind in the trees Make my body electric again Inhabit a body I have no choice To sleep peacefully beside, because I must More from Connie Helena ↓ * @journalof1000days [https://www.instagram.com/journalof1000days/] on Instagram * Her book Journal of 1000 Days [https://www.amazon.com/Journal-1000-Days-Connie-Helena/dp/B0DWKDMV11/] is available now And now for the poem this was written after. “God, you can keep the boys” by Peyton Michelle Bryant - God, you can keep the boys who only write sad poetry and listen to The Smiths on repeat. God, my man is a warrior. Lord knows I’ve got enough words to feed the both of us when times get tough. My man writes poems with his hands. My man is not afraid to bloody his knuckles for me. My man is a lion, Lord. He is a stallion running down his own mission. Our paths meet in the middle where we play but neither one pulls the other off course. He knows I belong to this wild world doesn’t try to rope me in or brand me with his name. He knows I am not something to be owned. Instead, he builds me a boat with the biggest sail you’ve ever seen and paints my name on the side of her. He builds me a set of wings that carries me farther than Icarus could ever go. He builds me a writing cabin and doesn’t get offended when I’m taken by the desire to be alone for days in my cocoon of creation. His hands are shields- his palms big enough to hold the entirety of the Milky Way and each one has memorized the blue/brown/green/red planet of my body. His fingertips brush the column of my throat and he calls the rain down. Gardens grow in the marrow of me and not once does he try to pluck them from the soil. My man has arms and legs like the trunks of the six-hundred-year-old Sycamore. I want to nest in the branches of him. I chart the map of his body like a world-eager traveler- trace the veins like blue-green rivers along the shores of his forearms lick the salt ocean sweat gathered in his jugular notch climb him like a wolf in heat and still I am hungry for the meat of him. My man calls me Brilliant calls me Dragon Fire calls me Wolf Witch, Poetess, Great Moon of His Heart. My man calls me Thank God. He calls me At Last. God, my man is an inferno. I need him to be sturdy enough to withstand the heat. He is my burning crimson star; I reach for the ten-million-degree Fahrenheit center of him without flinching. God, I know you’ve put us together before; our lifetimes are an ancient song my cells still remember. I remember how we smelled of campfire smoke and sweat- our feet pounding a beat into the Earth. I remember his face cast in firelight- the two of us skin on skin, a tangled pile of limbs blanketed by furs. I remember my nails tracing red lines down the planes of him my hair held like a bird tender in his fist. I remember his mouth marking each rung of my spine, his calloused hands like rocky planets orbiting the moon of me. I remember I fell from my horse- he took an arrow to the heart and new bodies and lives made up a river of time between us. I am a queen lost to his kingdom, Lord. Send the cavalry! The lines have been blurred between dragon woman and tower and I can no longer remember which one I’m supposed to be. God, I want you to give him back. I want to lay him down in the feather bed of my heart once again. I want to take his hand catch a ride to some faraway red planet where reincarnation is just myth- where this life is the only one that matters. God, call him back to me with bone and blood with fire and howl- stitch soul to body once more. I will rearrange the cosmos myself if need be. And this time, when stars align and we find each other again, I will not fall from my horse. No. This time we’ll ride side by side all the way back home. More from Peyton Michelle Bryant ↓ * @mama.laloba [https://www.instagram.com/mama.laloba] on Instagram * Her newest poetry book Wolf Witch of the Wild [https://bookshop.org/a/115728/9798267107402] and her debut, Feral Mother, Sovereign Woman [https://bookshop.org/a/115728/9798329370348], are out now. Support + Stay Connected to OPO If you’d like to support the show, Substack [https://rembrandtscure.substack.com/] and Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/OnePoemOnly] members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook. Poetry reminds us what matters. Thank you for listening.

Dear Unknown Ancestor Naked in the Woods by Danielle Eleanor La Valle after Chris Kads | One Poem After

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise. Today's poem is Dear Unknown Ancestor Naked in the Woods by Danielle Eleanor La Valle after Chris Kads: I haven't gone back far enough, keep going, keep going, back, back, back, farther still... ...ah, there, there you are, sitting on a log. Waiting maybe. You are wind-thickened skin, tattoos made of soot and saliva, scars I didn't know a body could hold. I look at you and see an early death, abscess teeth, parasites, tuberculosis. You smile with the half teeth you have remaining. You look at me as I am, confused and wrapped in many layers of highly profitable fear. You are deaf in one ear and you limp, rheumatoid is already curling your fingers, but you're alive, gloriously and nakedly in this wood. We are I think the same age, though that means something different here. Then asking with your eyes -neither of us have any language that will mean anything to the other- you want to know why am I so sad, why am I so afraid? You put your hand on the scar that missed my eye, you hold up the face I fear is sagging too soon, you slid your arms around my soft, asymmetrical body. More from Danielle Eleanor Lavalle ↓ * @danielleeleanorlavalle [https://www.instagram.com/danielleeleanorlavalle/] on Instagram And now for the poem this was written after. Dear Personal Care Department God by Chris Kads after Lancee Whetman - God of the Personal Care Department, please grant me musk. Grant me the strength of “Steel Courage” - buffness in a bottle. Let my body be a vessel of “dragon’s breath” and “warrior’s blood”. Allow me, like men, to be baptized in wet swagger, to have my preconceived softness wash away with the scent of toughness. Bless me, with blindness in the face of razors. Grant me the normalization of forest-y armpits to pair with the scent of “Sasquatch Foot”. And, please, oh holy Personal Care Department God, revoke your commandments and let the avoidance of “Secret” and smoothness not be a sin. Amen. More from Chris Kads ↓ * @chris_kads [https://www.instagram.com/chris_kads/] on Instagram Support + Stay Connected to OPO If you’d like to support the show, Substack [https://rembrandtscure.substack.com/] and Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/OnePoemOnly] members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook. Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Bones by Toni Young after Ella B. Winters | One Poem After

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now. BONES TONI YOUNG after Ella B. Winters it doesn’t take much to see through skin, through blood, through bones i’ve etched poems in each rib this cage can only hold so many stories see how this poem is stuck in the marrow see how this poem is caught in the hollow do i have to break these bones for you to read me More from Toni Young ↓ * @toniyoungpoems [https://www.instagram.com/toniyoungpoems/] on Instagram * @toniyoungpoems [https://substack.com/@toniyoungpoems] on Substack And now for the poem this was written after. UGLY BONES BY ELLA B. WINTERS ELLA B. WINTERS Behind the dusty radiator, green splashed like blood spray in a B-film, from that time when you decided to paint our bedroom in the middle of the night, I keep my poems hidden in a puce manila file so unremarkable, it chameleons into the background, pink tongue unfurling to swallow my words into the shadowy crevice. Mostly, I don’t want you to see them, as though, in the starkness of the early hours, when our walls demand another change, they might reveal my ugly bones through the translucent skin. But sometimes, I forget they’re there, as well. Imagine leaving them behind when we move on. Who will I be when unsuspecting tenants pull me out word after word like a magician’s string of endless gauzy scarves? How will they piece my naked bones together? What colour will they paint the room? More from Ella B. Winters ↓ * @ella.b.winters [https://www.instagram.com/ella.b.winters/] on Instagram * @ellabwinters [https://substack.com/@ellabwinters] on Substack Support + Stay Connected to OPO If you’d like to support the show, Substack [https://rembrandtscure.substack.com/] and Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/OnePoemOnly] members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook. Feed yourself poetry every day.