Daily Poetry Jaron Heard

When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

Beauty on earth so blue, even the cheese flowers
a culture with no democracy... Yesterday (for example),
I ate the same sandwich I eat every week: eggplant
roasted in red pepper aioli, a focaccia jammed full
by arugula, capers sweaty in browned butter. How
have I come to love routine? I’m thirsty and abashed.
The fabric of my childhood underwear triple axels in the wind—wow.
The whole neighborhood watches me do emails, go to therapy: she shed

revenge for forgiveness. I said it, “i forgive you” slipping
like a key beneath a door, where never was a house attached.
Is it beauty on earth, so blue? Each side stalled, you are touched,
forstanding the sun. Its fat macula borne down grips
(i wish! i saw! i fear! i heard! i dream) like an emotion.
This is not a feeling. This can be, I think, a conversation.

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Beginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,
The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,
The first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.

Angels are unthinkable
in hot weather

except in some tropical locales, where
from time to time, the women catch one in their nets,

hang it dry, and fashion it into a lantern
that will burn forever on its own inexhaustible oils.

But here—shins smocked with heat rash,
the supersaturated air. We no longer believe

in energies pure enough not to carry heat,
nor in connections—the thought of someone

somewhere warming the air we breathe
that one degree more . . . .

In a packed pub during the World Cup final,
a bony redhead woman gripped my arm

too hard. I could see how a bloke might fancy you.
Like a child’s perfect outline in fast-melting snow,

her wet handprint on my skin, disappearing.
The crowd boiling over, a steam jet: Brrra-zil!

And Paris—a heroin addict
who put her hypodermic

to my throat: Je suis malade.
J’ai besoin de medicaments.

Grabbing her wrist, I saw
her forearm’s tight net sleeve of drying blood.

I don’t like to be touched.
I stand in this mammoth parking lot,

car doors open, letting the air conditioner
run for a while before getting in.

The heat presses down equally
everywhere. It wants to focus itself,

to vaporize something instantaneously,
efficiently—that shopping cart, maybe,

or that half-crushed brown-glass bottle—
but can’t quite. Asphalt softens in the sun.

Nothing’s detachable.
The silvery zigzag line

stitching the tarmac to the sky around the edges
is no breeze, just a trick of heat.

My splayed-out compact car half-sunk
in the tar pit of its own shadow—

strong-shouldered, straining
to lift its vestigial wings.