Molly Fisk: The Northeast Edge of Normal
parents of children
I’ll never meet are gone into the open
arms of the sky and the sea and their
sons and daughters with them how
can this happen again
Molly Fisk: Suffer No Fools
I woke in the dark
and watched light rise up
behind the trees, pale gray
to a backlit lemon yellow
turning gold and unlikely
blue, the colors blossoming
Jack Gilbert: A Brief for the Defense
We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
Molly Fisk: Maybe I’ll Just Sing To Him
As the planned flaw in a woven blanket
banishes hubris or lets mischief out,
her breasts greet each other unevenly.
Molly Fisk: Early
Small towns at daybreak are so nostalgic:
the only thing missing’s a train whistle.
Good morning, America. Mercenaries
in Portland last night teargassed a wall
of mothers. How long will we remember?
Molly Fisk: Two Poems
Part, partial, apart, apartheid,
apartments invaded, a woman
shot though she too was a piece
of the continent, she was a part
of the main.
Molly Fisk: In Other News
I can easily find
the edges now between anger, rage,
and disappointment by what’s running
underneath and stop before I lash out.
Molly Fisk: Full Flower Moon Lunar Eclipse
It was me, stepping out the front door
every six or eight minutes to look up
into a cloudy sky that darkened
and opened.
Molly Fisk: Austerity
I love the bare, the necessary: tree without leaves,
man with no clothes. Muscle and skin, bark, knot,
scar, and stubble. Dignity planted before us without
apology.
Molly Fisk: Parsing
the pounding heart
subsiding slowly, slowly, til it’s just a noun again, returning
to its steady beat of subject, verb, adverb, object
Molly Fisk: Devotion
The mergansers fly so close to the surface
their feet could touch it, banking up
from gray waves to paler sky
Molly Fisk: Phil, Who Loved the Giants
The bra I took off at 4:45 through the sleeve of my dress
and put down somewhere I find on my grandmother’s hutch
in the kitchen, incongruous, surrounded by jars of jam
Molly Fisk: You and I
the whole country snarled into such a hot mess
you wouldn’t recognize democracy if she
removed her skirts and danced on your lap for free,
pretending to like you.
Molly Fisk: How to Stop
It depends on the way you were broken:
Body from soul? Mind from memory?
