Four Poems
RAIN
In the garden there were many signs.
Pat the ferns calmly. They are calm ferns.
See them single file. In our memory of what
the garden could give us there was a flash
of memory. Spiraling stuff, we like them.
We like platitudes, plainly. We knew that we
were in the garden because we were in
an in between place. We were the ones
who were neither good nor bad. This plane
of feeling all of it we could have. All stuff
that came plainly out of us was flashing.
It was a single light. It was ferns. “It” is. “It”
was. Lots of the plants had “It” as a name.
It is what “It” was. We knew its light was.
We knew its leaf is. It was a sign that
something we wanted to happen was
indeed going to happen. Because when
we ate the ferns it was beaming. It was
saying, calmly: we want it to happen.
PENELOPE PENELOPE PENELOPE PENELOPE
Everybody’s pushing to be the first in line.
Arms and legs need company so the street
corners are full of them. The streets are open until
Hi say the brides. Hi says the wind tremblingly.
I am soft like perfect money, the only one.
Hiii I say. What are you doing here on this muggy
zero of a day. The wind has its ideals, I do too.
I am humming softly, as I belong to no one.
Playing parts of soundless now. Nights at best window.
The brides, they all choose to be named the same.
I am waiting my turn for the very first drop of rain.
SMALL ONE
Eternal volume for the thankfulness I ride. It’s
okay, your life, my life, our life in this wave. That
much more. These semifeeling great. Those
dirty outline of the buzz. I’m giving it all to daily
party I try. I assumed to belonged to the guy.
It’s spawning in ways more green than one. So
the chippery is aware of it all. It’s forward. It’s
kinda baller. It’s a zillion and one. Your face, it’s on
the tip of my tongue.
THE TOPS OF SOME HILLS
I was two hundred feet tall. I wasn’t
trying to do anything fancy. Just wanted
to hold my girlfriend’s hand while shopping
for dinner. The issue is she was two feet
tall. First, I declared myself our hero. I
was able to shield her from what the
weathermen called “rain.” The streets
became ours to conquer. Those horn
dogs never called her name again.
On her birthday, she wished for a brilliant
thing to emerge from the grass. I could
barely see the grass. So I went to who
the neighbors called “Aoife.” Aoife,
she made me secret to sky’s little leak.
∩
Yagmur Akyurek is a poet from central Massachusetts. Her chapbook DONNA I LOVE YOU STEVE is out with No, Dear. She lives in New York.