From January Gill O’Neil:

the blues are nowhere to be found.
Not tonight. Not here.
No makeup. No tears.
Only contours. Only curves.
Each sip takes back a pound,
each dry-roasted swirl takes our soul.
Can I have a refill, just one more?
Let the bitterness sink to the bottom of our lives.
Let us take this joy to go.

– In the Company of Women

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From Pippa Little:

but now we rise, all women
fondled and hurt and licked in acid jokery and in hate,
pets, sweethearts, loves, darlings, humourless bitches –
we stand together, each one a Spartaca
no longer silent or alone: each voice stronger,
massing, alive, a wild murmuration
of me too/ me too/ me too

– Spartaca

From Chera Hammons:

They say to be cursed, you’ve got to believe in curses.
What is a woman? Can you kiss
any of that hurt away?
The wood is too green and will not burn.
We leave with what we carried when we arrived—
a hunger, a love of air. That’s it.
I don’t know how to take compliments,
so I bury them alive.

– Anything Worth Saving

From Kwame Dawes:

The sea is familiar as all dawns are familiar.
We walk into them knowing it is our sack
of troubles that we spill open to color
the sky. But here on the boat, at anchor,
apart from the ordinary lull of the easy
tide, there is a certain peace.

– At Anchor: The Real Situation

From Aline Murray Kilmer:

I can never remake the thing I have destroyed;
I brushed the golden dust from the moth’s bright wing,
I called down wind to shatter the cherry-blossoms,
I did a terrible thing.

I feared that the cup might fall, so I flung it from me;
I feared that the bird might fly, so I set it free;
I feared that the dam might break, so I loosed the river:
May its waters cover me.

– Shards

From Witter Bynner:

Words are hoops
Through which to leap upon meanings,
Which are horses’ backs,
Bare, moving.

– Horses

From Scherezade Siobhan:

be the wind that snakes through
each gargoyle’s stone-jawed fount.

unlatch the door from its bronzed decade
& flood the floor with your bull-horned sigils

tell me again how
i slow the fury of your fists

here, the selcouth of a mouth
its dark room, its dirty word

here, the origin of a body, bare-breasted,
its whorehouse hymn; a treacle of taboos.

here, your name; ghost and god –
a rosary i recite with teeth.

– come palabra