Broken Wings (for George Herbert) | Ethan Abata

I'll give you some goddamned Easter wings.

I robbed them from a dead man.

He fell from the sky today--

He flew too high.

Gorgon paradise,

Made of words in the dark

Shines like a justified slaughter

Up in the sky, always beyond your reach.

Taken from the 2001 issue of The Wire Harp.

Drug Abuse | Randy Olson

Never mind how I arrived here.
I am a swimmer at the bottom of the pool
With my hand stuck in the drain
Fighting desperately for a breath of fresh air.
There are some people sitting around the pool
Admiring how long I am able to hold my breath,
Talking about me, pointing to me like I am some
Kind of hero, saying that they envy my
Position in life.
But I am here at the bottom,
Desperately trying to wrench my hand free
So that I can come up to the surface
And begin to live once again.


Taken from the 1987 issue of The Wire Harp.

The stairs of bookshelves that line my room | Alesha Suydam

impose upon me
histories upon histories
supine details
malice
bound by thread and paper

force language down my throat
that i may choke on verbs and
conjugation
drown in letters and
punctuation
and finally gain my breath between
italics and exclamation

points.

do not let this incense burn your
sacred decomposition.

let me climb you
and rest in your spine

my hand in
your hand opening and closing
in mine

your head in my lap
and contentment
folded in your mouth


Taken from the 2007 issue of The Wire Harp.

No Little Mother | Jane Johnson

I know you think that I am a natural appendage.
you look at me like you
look at your hand.
Whatever I say--it's a reflex
and you're sure you know the back of me
--but I am a Universe (you didn't know this).
People live
and die inside me--
no one ever leaves.


Taken from the 2002 issue of The Wire Harp.

Buried | Jason Rellik

After you left
I still had your smile,
locked up,
sealed away,
flung into a pit
and buried.
I long to gaze upon it
again--
but I cannot break
through the bedrock.


Taken from the 1998 issue of The Wire Harp.

Emily's Tyger | Steve Reames

How much starlight would it take
to make you sore, shepherd, afraid
of the dark or of indifferent cold?

Awakened by the slap
of single-handed night, I shudder
at the prickle of stars still as air.

In the firmament,
winter solstice burns bone zero.
Terror spreads like glory in my skull.


Taken from the 1994 issue of The Wire Harp.

Moon | Lindsay Williams

the moon,
when passing by,
became snarled in the overhanging branches of a tree.
I strove to free it
but, evading me,
it skillfully unspun the trap
and sailed away
beyond my grasp.


Taken from the 2004 issue of The Wire Harp.