(a collective piece inspired by the "round-robin" poets - thanks everyone :)

A chalky schoolbus rattled the dusty plane

Leaving smoke outside the door of the cottage
Alarms signalled something was wrong

Ashen whispers reached our tongues and began to suffocate

BIG-OT-RY (/ˈBIꞬƏTRĒ/)

--by Eli Azizollahoff

The monster known as Bigotry has the general form of a scapegoat with the horns of the devil from your left shoulder and the glowing eyes from the first staring contest you lost. It stands as tall as your shortcomings and as broad as everything you claim is too heavy for your shoulders. It is summoned with the pentagram star of the flag you say you are acting to honor and marches  to the rhythm of your gunfire-drum. It has the shifting face of every school yard bully you have lost yourself to and the shrieks of every child who has trembled in your shadow. Its tail looks much like the back-end of a fish, flipping back and forth from whatever opinion makes you seem the highest and mightiest, scales catching the light in all the most attractive ways. Though its gate is led with a haughty head, its shoulders demand attention and when ignored they grow; more boisterous, louder, wider - until it feels like the elephant in the room you use his horns to prod in the most painful places. Bigotry is as old as time and as strong as the might of every trolling comment you’ve ever posted. Bigotry’s most notable characteristic is its sense of smell; it can sniff out weakness within ten heartbeats and tear it from its respite in the dark. When you look past Bigotry’s sneers and huffs and perpetually prone muscles it kind of looks like everything you ignore when looking in the mirror.

Flight

--by Batsheva Lasky

The pull in your stomach
as you begin to fall.
The scream of wind in your ears
as gravity grabs you
into its greedy embrace.
The tug of your shoulders as wings
black as a moonless night, light as the sun’s rays
stretch out from your shoulder blades,
like a cat in the sun,
stretching towards the heavens.
And you soar.
The clouds part before you as you make the sky your own,
turning and wheeling with the hawks.
Fighting gravity. Fighting time.
The summit of your youth flashes by as you climb higher still.
Surmounting your past.
But like paper to flame, your wings crumble to mourners ash
as the sun greets you with the heat of the day.
The smoke fills your nose, the ash your eyes.
You turn and wheel but the hawks are gone.
Blue above and below as they merge into one.
Fear pulls your stomach
as you begin to fall.

Daughter's First Date

--by Shoshy Ciment

First it was you
clubbing the open air with your fists

challenging the earth
of our tiny backyard lawn

to fight back like a man

Behind our screen door 

I saw you kick your limbs

in figure-eights and karate chops

crow like Peter Pan 

to no one in particular until

I dragged you, lovingly

back to me

1,895 dinners later

after karate lessons, piano recitals

broken ankles and 

broken hearts

your grip on our browning lawn 

gradually lessened to 

a playful squeeze and then

a tender caress until 

it was you

slamming the door as

you ran to his car

A sequined purse, rosy cheeks

slender limbs that hadn’t

punched in years

Through the screen I saw

your small hand in his 

as the car started with

a sputter and a hum

and you moved

slowly and certainly

away from me

To my seventeen-year-old brother

--by Judy Leserman

You twist my innards, the way you toddle

about the world, all seventy-five inches of you.

You’ve got a siren-alarm heart, in bungling search 

for that hat you were meant to wear, with your fingers

pulling after it like they used to pull china-bearing table cloths.

I don’t mind, it’s just that you wouldn't have me catch

those pieces that can crash, the ones that could be heirlooms,

the ones that no amount of glue could salvage.

In you is a boy who runs, hands-over-head,
open-palmed into outstretched arms.
No one told you that you are made of porcelain.

When the brunt of burgeoning manhood bores
that boy, through and through,
I will hold myself a car-key-dangle away,
I will place a razor-trim trail back to me.

Created for Stern's Poetry Blog!

— Professor Miller (@CivilizedYawp) April 17, 2018

I Cry When I See Men on the Fields

by Shoshy Ciment


What is it about high school

football players
Dressed in second skins and
rain soaked masks
Living our pastimes like
unpaid mercenaries
Content to bleed
on newly cut grass


if it means they’ve got a chance at fame. No, a chance at relevance. War is much nicer to our boys than organized sports. At least in the trenches they wear their dreams without shame. They can cry because death is so much bigger than a loss to Avery High School. And I can cry for them because they fought for a


grand old flag
a high flying flag
waving with the
frailty of a dying man
Edges tattered like
Hand-me-down fatigues
Those stars and stripes
never looked so
cruel


as they did the day you came home, wrapped in mahogany and sealed in primer. We all wept because you had lost. And it was okay. It was noble. All fields hold dying dreams of crying men but some dreams are more heroic than others and high school trophies and touchdowns are not. When I lowered you into the ground, I wondered if


the grass still held
the memory of you before
you left
Could it still taste your
teenage blood
that stained the fields with
simple dreams of
simple victories