180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day
First HourSharon OldsThat hour, I was most myself. I had shruggedmy mother slowly off, I lay theretaking my first breaths, as ifthe air of the room was blowing melike a bubble. All I had to dowas go out along the line of my gaze and back,out and back, on gravity’s silk, thepressure of the air a caress, smelling on myself her creamy blood. The airwas softly touching my skin and tongue,entering me and drawing forth the littlesighs I did not know as mine.I was not afraid. I lay in the quietand looked, and did the wordless thought,my mind was getting its oxygendirect, the rich mix by mouth.I hated no one. I gazed and gazed,and everything was interesting, I wasfree, not yet in love, I did notbelong to anyone, I had drunkno milk, yet—no one hadmy heart. I was not very human. I did notknow there was anyone else. I laylike a god, for an hour, then they came for me,and took me to my mother.The AlienGreg DelantyI’m back again scrutinising the Milky Wayof your ultrasound, scanning the darkmatter, the nothingness, that now the heads sayis chockablock with quarks & squarks,gravitons & gravitini, photons & photinos. Our sprout,who art there inside the spacecraftof your ma, the time capsule of this printout,hurling & whirling towards us, it’s all dafton this earth. Our alien who art in the heavens,our Martian, our little green man, we’re anxiousto make contact, to ask divers questionsabout the heavendom you hail from, to discussthe whole shebang of the beginning&end,the pre-big-bang untime before you forget the whyand lie of thy first place. And, our friend,to say Welcome, that we mean no harm, we’d diefor you even, that we pray you’re not hereto subdue us, that we’d put awayour ray guns, missiles, attitude and shareour world with you, little big head, if only you stay.Waking with RussellDon PatersonWhatever the difference is, it all beganthe day we woke up face-to-face like loversand his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,possessed him, till it would not fall or waver;and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grinbut his own smile, or one I’d rediscovered.Dear son, I was mezzo del’ camminand the true path was as lost to me as everwhen you cut in front and lit it as you ran.See how the true gift never leaves the giver:returned and redelivered, it rolled onuntil the smile poured through us like a river.How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men!I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.The Floating RibLucia PerilloBecause a woman had eaten somethingwhen a man told her not to. Because the manwho told her not to had made herfrom another man’s bones. That’s whymen badgered the heart-side of her chest,knowing she could not give the bone back, knowingshe would always owe them that one bone.And you could see how older girls who knewtheir catechism armed themselves against it:with the pike end of teasing combsthey scabbarded in pocketbooks that clashedagainst the jumper’s nightwatch plaid.In the girl’s bathroom, you watched themwield the spike in dangerous proximity to their eyes,shepherding the bangs through which they peeredlike cheetahs in an upside-downward-growing grass.Then they’d mouth the words to “Runaway”while they ran white lipstick round their lips,white to announce they had no bloodso any wound would leave no trace, as Eve’shaving nothing more to lose must have madelll her fearless. What was weird was how soonthe ordinary days started running past themlike a river, how willingly they entered itand how they rose up on the other side. Tamed,or god no . . . your mother: ready to settlewith whoever found the bone under her blouseand give it over, and make a life out of the gettingback.TO THE DUST OF  THE ROADW. S. MerwinAnd in the morning you are up againwith the way leading through you for a whilelonger if the wind is motionless whenthe cars reach where the asphalt ends a mileor so below the main road and the waveyou rise into is different every timeand you are one with it until you havemade your way up to the top of your climband brightened in that moment of that dayand then you turn as when you rose beforein fire or wind from the ends of the earthto pause here and you seem to drift awayon into nothing to lie down once moreuntil another breath brings you to birth