SISYPHUS
Sitting on a wooden bench
In April, I consider
Sisyphus in hell. How hot
He must be under the gods’
Persistent hands, and tired.
Though he is clever and cruel,
I’d like to take his gray weight
For a moment. I’d like to
Use my limbs to urge the stone
Further, though I know it is
Futile. Still, I recognize
Metaphor. (The stars never
Are merely the stars.) He is
Doing what we all must do—
Pushing just to push again,
Chasing just to chase again,
Building muscle for nothing.
We all do and do more with-
Out progress. No dents in the
Grass, no horizon. This is
Living—She writes the same damn
Poem over and over
Until there is no poem
Anymore. But there is still
A She and a Me who is
Watching through owl’s eyes and
Saying, “There is no poem
Anymore.” And we can hold
Each other and take weight. I
Can push her stone when she is
Tired, and she can push mine.
We can forgive and forget,
As many promise they will,
But then forgive and forget
Themselves only.We do not
Get anywhere, but closer
To each other, which is why
We are alive and breathing.
If Sisyphus had a hand
In his task, the same futile,
Endless task of trying to
Fight the inevitable
With no weapon, you tell me
If it would still, then, be hell.
-Chloe Ford
She Still Gardens
He likes the way smoke curls up and hangs in mid-air,
but keeps discount sunflowers on the windowsill
to convince me he doesn’t.
I watch my husband from the kitchen
as he lights another, sitting on the bench in the yard,
popping daffodil heads from reluctant stems.
Momma had a baby.
I lost my mind last April,
when I discovered his armchair resting between two clouds,
He couldn’t manage reality.
My yellow and green striped lawn-chair,
sank to the bottom of a lake I used to visit.
Children’s toys in bright reds and purples bob among the waves.
I planted a tiger lily seed in a mason jar in our bedroom,
hoping it would rise up tall and smash through the skylight,
carry me up, up.
Yesterday, I called my mother for the first time in twelve years.
She still gardens.
-Lauren Baretta
Spark
Waiting at the cliff jump,
we peered off the edge
hoping someone would leap
but no one stirred.
As we bickered, in the water thirty feet below
a discoloration erupted beneath the surface,
expanding until it distorted our reflections
and we appeared diaphanous.
I knew it was oil that had escaped from the bottom.
So lighting my shirt aflame,
I held my breath,
jumped from the edge,
and swam in watery immolation.
-Cam Netland
