By Shane McCrae
The joke you hear today you’ll hear
Again next year again each ev-
ery birthday after for the first…
Again next year again each ev-
ery birthday after for the first…
Explore Poems: Birth & Birthdays
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- By Abdulkareem AbdulkareemAll things begin from the spindle,
we say—life spun from graces.
I grew like rain from rumbles of my parents’
cloud, a dark dawn, admitting growth.
In the beginning, I squeeze into existence with a head,
white, silhouette-like—formed from
the stomach of the hard earth on... - By Liz BerryI crossed the border into the Republic of Motherhood
and found it a queendom, a wild queendom.
I handed over my clothes and took its uniform,
its dressing gown and undergarments, a cardigan
soft as a creature, smelling of birth and milk,
and I lay... - By Ocean VuongSuppose you do change your life.
& the body is more than
a portion of night––sealed
with bruises. Suppose you woke
& found your shadow replaced
by a black wolf. The boy, beautiful
& gone. So you take the knife to the wall
instead. You carve &... - By Patricia Smith62. You would have been 62.
I would have given you a Roosevelt Road
kinda time, an all-night jam in a
twine time joint, where you could have
taken over the mike
and crooned a couple.
The place be all blue light
and JB air
and big-legged women
giggling... - By Charlotte PenceWhat is death to us? We've heard that myth,
a ghost story to tell around a camp fire.
We're too busy to think. Our copies constantly
clamor around our waists like children. They rush
from their cramped classrooms into the red light
of the first... - By Forrest GanderAnd then smelling it,
feeling before
the sound even reaches
him, he kneels at
cliff's edge and for the
first time, turns his
head toward the now
visible falls that
gush over a quarter
mile of uplifted sheet-
granite across the valley
and he pauses,
lowering his eyes
for a moment, unable
to withstand... - By Jan-Henry GrayThe young mother born
with the wrong name
boards a plane.
Flanked by
her second and ... - By Zeina Hashem BeckMy mother says I sure was heaven-sent
& determined on making her life hell—
cried every afternoon, & not one spell
worked. She rocked, she sang, made all the attempts
of too-young mothers. Don’t they say the scent
of a mother’s neck, & her voice,... - By Paisley RekdalAre the drapes drawn open or being closed?
Each of the heavy, velvet wings is clasped
in the hands of a little angel, a little man really,
in the shades of plum and mint green that frame
the birthing tent's opening for a girl
who... - By Devon Walker-FigueroaReed, who’s got one strike left before he gets
life, tells me afterbirth is what the cougars are after.
“Lambing season,” he says, “plus, placenta’s a delicacy
to a cat.” I try to explain how
intent they were, how... - By Jenny Zhangmy mother had two vaginas
one to birth me and one to keep me
inside the first one I had two names
my given name and my other given name
my twat had a name too
it was forgotten because the climate changed
the climate changed... - By Clodagh Beresford DunneWhat happens to a heart after death?
It pounds around the rib cage,
at last leaps through the sternum
into the menacing wood.
Grows a coat of fur, thickening around the neck.
Becomes crepuscular,
cannot bear to be seen.
Crumens beneath its beautiful eyes
secrete waxy tears,
its four-chambered... - By Angela LeightonIt’s gone thirty years since this light steel disc
warmed to his skin,
sixty and more since I laid my child’s ear
... - By J. Jennifer EspinozaI turned twenty-four and
dad decided to take
another stab at making
a man out of me.
On his command, I drove us
out to Hollywood where
you could get three sets of suits
for a hundred bucks.
What a steal! he exclaimed
as though his enthusiasm
would fertilize
something that... - By Michael LallyI wait and wonder
what I’d do
if someone said pick your 60 best poems.
Pick all of them? Or any?
Maybe commit suicide, but everyone would say
“It’s because he’s really gay,” or... - By Greg DelantyI’m back again scrutinizing the Milky Way
of your ultrasound, scanning the dark
matter, the nothingness, that now the heads say
is chockablock with quarks and squarks,
gravitons and gravatini, photons and photinos. Our sprout,
who... - By Bernadette MayerEcstatic experiences with nature
This is an automatic furnace
Do not drop or roll
Do not handle with squeeze lift truck
Handle with care
This is a piece of quality assured
Home heating and cooling equipment
The Ohio Valley Container Corporation
Made its container to stand
A resistance bursting... - By Aracelis Girmaysister was the wolf
& could cross easily through
the mountain dark to den
keen & quivered with
the muscular siege of slit purse
purple with hours
purse purple with birthwork
her sight both inward-
& outward-lit
on what small sparkle of pyrite
in the silt or the thick... - By W. S. GrahamWhat are you going to do
With what is left of yourself
Now among the rustling
Of your maybe best years?
This is not an auto-elegy
With me pouring my heart
Out into where you
Differently stand or sit
On the Epidaurus steps.
What shall I say to myself
Having...