"Mrs. Noah: Taken After the Flood" by Jo Shapcott

I can't sit still these days. The ocean
is only memory, and my memory as fluttery
as a lost dove. Now the real sea beats
inside me, here, where I'd press fur and feathers
if I could. I'm middle-aged and plump.
Back on dry land I shouldn't think these things:
big paws which idly turn to bat the air,
my face by his ribs and the purr which ripples
through the boards of the afterdeck,
the roar - even at a distance - ringing in my bones,
the rough tongue, the claws, the little bites,
the crude taste of his mane. If you touched my lips
with salt water I would tell you such words,
words to crack the sky and launch the ark again.

"Weather's Here, Wish You Were Beautiful" by Rachel McKibbens

There was the summer you ignored me so hard
it gave me bad posture. By fall, the chiropractor
prescribed a back brace and a name tag to wear
around the house.

Every Christmas Eve, instead of throwing me
a birthday party, you'd soak me in the bathtub,
fully-clothed, and hang misletoe above the light sockets.

I was never included in family portraits-
you said I had a face only a mother could leave.
I remember standing in your hallway every other weekend,
gazing at you and my stepbrother, wearing the framed smiles
I knew I would inherit.

I became your biggest fan, chasing your car home
from the grocery store, standing outside your bedroom
for an autograph or a handshake, explaining,
Ma, I've seen ever one of your home movies!
"Weekend Trip to the Zoo," "Mother Son Picnic in Yosemite"
and I know every one of your mood swings by heart.

When you'd drop me off at home, I'd brag to Dad
and his girlfriend about my brush with fame. They'd smile
and nod, then shake the wild imagination right out of me.

Pretty soon the weekend visits faded into a nineteen-year
carnival line where I waited for you until the sights and sounds
of families and laughter made my stomach plunge.

That's the year I lost my appetite then found it
in men disguised as getaway cars. Sometimes a tingling sensation
sweeps across my face like an amputee's phantom itch,
and I realize how much I miss the back of your hand.

I know, I never apologized for steering you
into that marital car crash, but how was I to know
they'd pry your legs apart, drag me from the wreckage,
my first cries shattering that rear view mirror of a heart?

You could have told them. You could've explained-
I was just some filthy hitchhiker you never meant to pick up.
A greedy little fetus. An accident waiting to happen.

"i like my body when it is with your body" by EE Cummings

i like my body when it is with your

body. It is so quite a new thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

i like your body. i like what it does,

i like its hows. i like to feel the spine

of your body and its bones, and the trembling

-firm-smooth ness and which i will

again and again and again

kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz

of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh... and eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

"Cause and Effect" by Charles Bukowski

the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them

"Since There is No Escape" by Sara Teasdale

Since there is no escape, since at the end

My body will be utterly destroyed,

This hand I love as I have loved a friend,

This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed;

Since there is no escape even for me

Who love life with a love too sharp to bear:

The scent of orchards in the rain, the sea

And hours alone too still and sure for prayer—

Since darkness waits for me, then all the more

Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore

In pride, and let me sing with my last breath;

In these few hours of light I lift my head;

Life is my lover—I shall leave the dead

If there is any way to baffle death.