Poems Rethabile Likes

Fever 103° by Sylvia Plath Fever 103° Pure? What does it mean? The tongues of hell Are dull, dull as the triple Tongues of dull, fat Cerebus Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable Of licking clean The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin. The tinder cries. The indelible smell Of a snuffed candle! Love, love, the low smokes roll From me like Isadora's scarves, I'm in a fright One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel. Such yellow sullen smokes Make their own element. They will not rise, But trundle round the globe Choking the aged and the meek, The weak Hothouse baby in its crib, The ghastly orchid Hanging its hanging garden in the air, Devilish leopard! Radiation turned it white And killed it in an hour. Greasing the bodies of adulterers Like Hiroshima ash and e...

Letter From the Afterlife by Andrea Gibson Letter From the Afterlife My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish y...

Passing Through by Hala Alyan Passing Through My mother is calling at midnight again. I’ve lost her house. I wore it under a dress. I wore it six times into the new year. My mother wants to know if she should leave. Her father is dying, her father is Beirut and Akka and a single building in this world. I don’t know where the chickens go when it snows. I know he is dying. Yes. I know because he tells us: also the X-rays, the flesh sinking into his bones. Like what? A boat. A plank. My body displaces water from the bathtub. I colonize. I toss fish bones in the garden;… so many birds pecking at the stems. The building is on a mountain. Did I already say that? There’s a metal gate that rolls over each window. This is how we keep the moon out. Still, America got in....