Issue 6

September 2023

I just want to pause for a minute and celebrate six months of Part-Time Poets. This little dream I had is growing up! Thank you for reading and for supporting us with your comments and shares!

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Michelle and the Part-Time Poets

Holding on to August

Around the time summer starts saying she wouldn’t dare depart as early as tomorrow, but in the same breath admits she’s leaving soon, there’s a birthday. 

She is my second-born. 
She thawed the loss of one late February.  
She is the ripple that arrived on the surface of still waters.
She turns 17 and I watch her wake.

She 
is 
so 
very 
warm. 

And the fire that wraps bodies before, through, and after noon is going the way of the maples and will soon offer its absolute best on the ends of forks. 

And that’s been her beauty ever since she stole my oxygen on Monday, August 21, 2006.

A Leo, a lover of life, a daughter. 
Mine. Here. Wow. 

And here and now, just when my heart starts to mourn a line of lasts that stretches past these foundations found, I see her new, only just beginning, and always burning. 

She is my ember. 
She is the weight I waited for.

And 
how 
do 
I 
hold 
onto 
August 
after 
such 
a 
long, 
cold 
winter? 

Really, truly, I ask:
How does a mother hold 
the elements of a storm? 

Megan Sciarrino

Poetry is a jar

I coax spiky, sharp thoughts 
out with a needle from underneath ribs. 
They make a satisfying plink in my jar.

I press hands to my soft stomach, 
a diviner pressing sun-scorched clay,
searching for water. I listen for gulps 
and clenches, dribble droplets 
of raw emotion in my jar. 

I look to creation:
the rising and setting, 
waxing and waning, 
consuming and diminishing,
season my jar with salt, 
smoke and bone.

I sheaf through the Word, 
pour in symbol, metaphor,
and truth everlasting. 
I muddle and shake,
like a good alchemist,
hold out the jar and say,

“Do you see it?”
“Do you feel it too?”

Rebecca Marie

proof of life

the gray hairs
sprout
like wildflowers across my
head.
a part of my mind whispers
but you aren’t even 30 yet.
i push it away—
grateful for every
wry, shiny hair that glitters
in the sun.

Taylor Epperson

Ache and Awe

Why can’t you go 
with me? he asks 
the night before the first 

day of school and I think 
about when we were 
always together

for nine months, completely 
and then after strapped 
to my chest or in my arms 
still connected by an invisible cord

but then the space between 
our bodies started to grow wider
like a river carving a valley 
in the desert 

and he started exploring 
the other side of the water 
climbing up the bank, further 
away from me

but this is how the story goes 
how it’s supposed to read
so tomorrow he will go 

and I will stay on my side 
of the shore, waiting 
in the valley of ache and awe

Michelle Windsor

The Guarantees

In the slog of sick days,
every morning sores 
and more sores, every 
afternoon fevers climbing,
every evening bodies
limp and heavy with sleep,
I go out to catalog common
miracles—a sea of grass, 
a low-hanging sun, a child 
singing in the swing. This, 
this is all I need to be happy. 
Someone is always suffering 
somewhere, but there are 
other guarantees, too—
A child chirping on despite
everything, the sun coming
down to sit awhile, the grass 
stretching out its arms 
to hold me if I let it.

Krista Drechsel

Mud

I glance up from the book of poetry I am reading to giggles and splashes
Mud flying everywhere 
Rain boots becoming water pitchers
Flecks of brown speckling their faces
Puddle-logged pants indistinguishable from the earth below
Our laughs ride on the wind like spring personified
Sun streaming from behind unassuming clouds
Kissing us hello
I marvel at these moments that stretch time like fresh honey
Poetry
In the form of play
At my fingertips

Alexa Rose

Dear Influencer

Goddess of algorithms, Hestia of the pixelated screen,
cast your golden net of perfection over me.
Illuminate your ways—the fingerprint-free refrigerator door,
the gleaming toilet bowl. Show me how you conjure
steaming nourishment for your families, plated
and served on a pristine hearth. Style 
my family in bamboo cotton, filter my blemishes, smooth
my cellulite. Brew me the elixir 
that makes your husband smile 	like that. 
Grant me a grid of perfection, color-matched and set 
to music. Soundtrack my life, craft
me a narrative. Don’t crack 
the glass—just let me through
the portal, into the magic
of the world you’re showing me. 

Lorren Lemmons

I want to remember you like this

Bright-eyed and knobby-kneed. Sweaty and dirty and utterly delightful. You are a Jackson Pollock painting, bright and bold and breathtaking. You are a choose-your-own-adventure book, a blank page begging for ink. Your hands flutter like birds, and they always reach for mine. You are a rainbow. You are confetti. You are goodness incarnate. Like you swallowed the sun and became the light yourself. You have a horse’s heart: wild and pure and begging to break free. Eyes on the horizon. Soul at the ready. You don’t look back. 

Jillian Stacia 

Fire Safety

These days our life is highly flammable
In the way that small children are always combustible

Their needs the flames that lick at my consciousness
Their troubles the smoke that clouds my sight
Exhaustion poured over all of it like gasoline
You and I two fire chiefs with hoses at the ready

At night we fall into bed bone-tired
Our scorched hands finding each other
And there among the ashes we whisper
“Don’t you think the inferno is actually kind of beautiful?”

Tomorrow the alarm will sound
And we’ll once again don our turnout gear
But tonight our dreams are populated
By the arresting charm of dancing flames

Amy Grass

The Last Days of Summer

White crepe myrtle petals delicate as lace fall 
from trees and swirl into sidewalks, 
soon to be replaced with sturdier leaves 
painted red, orange, and yellow.
The only towels at the pool are ones forgotten,
collecting mildew and languishing 
in Lost & Found with dive rings and goggles.
The playground once swarming
with children hanging, sliding, and pumping legs
is bare, save the toddlers (and their mothers). 
Pumpkins replace watermelons 
and swimsuits are swapped for sweatshirts
and the woody, cedar scent of pencils 
supplants coconut sunscreen’s perfume. 
Sun plays peek-a-boo -- hiding her intensity, 
sinking earlier, and waiting longer 
to reveal her daily glory.

Alyssa Silvester