ohiolovesyou

[ohiolovesyou]

BRNHS Presents: O H I O Loves You (a national poetry month feature issue)

[ohiolovesyou]

Where does the poem begin?

In the graveyard. Under the loose dirt and turned soil, under the worms and their new tunnels, in the torn roots of grass and weeds. The poem begins to shape herself from Ohio clay orange and deeper red. The poem begins to animate her stanzas in a scaffolding of buried treasure, bits of random life forgotten underground. Pea gravel, sand, silt, but also buttons frayed from wool jackets, arrowheads and brass buckles rubbed raw with moisture. The poem begins collecting meter in her earthen tomb lacing insects by their shells wings and legs thumping the iambs like a movie soundtrack. The poem crawls out now. Her architecture coming together, her bells ringing along her fingertips signaling the bulldozers: excavate! They come looking for the poem and she begins to sing.

Amanda Stovicek was born in Cleveland, Ohio.

[ohiolovesyou]

Purity Test

One day your father will ask

you to walk through the bees

to see if you are ready or clean

enough to serve, girl

that you are, in all white down

an aisle with the buzz around

or inside you. And maybe like

me you’ll want to lay down

in the soil: lion, well fed,

let the bees hive your torso—

consider the wax, the candle,

the flame—how holy it is, how

important, as pure

as the honeybee, virginal

drone—like the work

of Our Lady, heavenly

Mother, blessed with split,

and implantation of the Lord,

what quiet furnish. Consider the wick

of the candle, how it rests inside

the body, how it’s lit and destroys

everything. You have been building it just

so he can wear it down.

Sara Moore Wagner was born in Columbus, Ohio.

[ohiolovesyou]

On Your Birthday

Bitter cold. Fields, still gray.  The goose breaks from her shelter. She

raises her white neck, cries for the sun to rise.  Pink tinge lingers— 

darkness tugs it back into the hills.  Five years ago, the moon drew 

blood from my vessel. The earth licked the birthing-waters my thighs.

 Your body tumbled from my body. In the bleached room, I plead into 

your blue face. This morning, the black dog lolls in circles, snaps at the 

goose.  White thrashes in the gloom, then silence. Goldenrod whisks 

the field—the sound of approaching flames.  

Sayuri Ayers has lived in Ohio since the third grade. 

[ohiolovesyou]

My mom was a researcher for the torso murders

Under my bathroom sink in a bowl

of wax is the face

of a man I don’t’ know with swollen

jowls, I like to slide

my fingers into his nose

so every morning I know

my own deformities.

  My mother was born

with a deviated septum

and so I’ve had this whistle

when I breathe.

  I light every candle in my apartment

with suspended eyes.

living in Cleveland is a lot like

living in molten lava. Everything

can be hard and soft

and on fire.

  Growing up with bloody

noses was the speech

I gave myself about blooming

into adulthood. Something red

always found its way out of my body

even when I was sunk

in hydrocarbon.

We live in a world of murders

dishing no-name faces. The only

change from the burning river

and strung corpses is we’re

all on fire without caring to scream.

Bronte Billings resides in Northeast Ohio.

[ohiolovesyou]

ode to that one summer, ending in shorebirds glowing in the ohio dark

(including mitski lyrics from “first love / late spring”)

there are black hole exoskeletons of fireworks

on the beach of geneva where you sleep during

warm rust belt summers & the organ beneath

our chests beats against the escape hatches

of our throats. the walleye dance beneath

the water; the night breeze carries something sweet in

the gap of your front teeth. i watch the sky

light up, listen to you, person i met at the

community pool, beckon my name. your

words bounce off the open trunk of my

car. our sunburnt legs dangling above the

sand floor, please hurry, love me. chalets overlook

the rippling lake, sparkling blue & red in the

night. i can’t breathe watching you suffer. i

want to kiss you, tell me “don’t,” so i can

crawl back into the backseat. northeast ohio

families let their children play by the shoreline;

tossing rocks into the water bubbling with dying

sparklers & seabird feathers. pewee acoltyes

search the sand with innocuous eyes for crab

spiders. the watercolor landscape, once pink &

orange, laughs until it turns to diamonds. i watch

you become blue beneath the moon. golden

retrievers sniffing the beach show their teeth

at the floor of rusted canadian license plates & rotting

carcasses of beach mice, sedimentary organs &

bones like caskets under our feet & in-between

the dry skin of our toes. the cabins across the

water all look like holograms; electric dance floors

beneath the water sending glimmers to the surface,

during the arcane full moon, with an epileptic smile.

one word from you & i would jump off that diving

board & retrieve the prettiest rainbow trout for

you, so you can hang it from the hook you’ve

put in my lip & watch the gills glitter. let me walk

to the top of your big night sky.

Matthew Mitchell is from Warren, Ohio.

[ohiolovesyou]

Geramee Hensley is from Cleveland, Ohio

[ohiolovesyou]

Her Mother Took Her to the Next Door Neighbor’s Pig Roast

Her ugly middle-aged belly bloat is her own damned fault

because she didn’t listen to her mother.

Her mother told her that if she didn’t stand up straight,

she’d get a pot belly and her mother was always right.

The way her belly looks now makes her think about the pig roast.

Her mother told her that if she didn’t stop frowning,

then her lips would get stuck in that frowny faced position

for the rest of her life. If she smiled, her lips might stay tight.

If she frowned, her lips would loosen and be easier to rip apart.

Her loose lips would have an apple shoved inside and then a sharp spit.

All she was worth was being stuck

in one contained space, with the wire threaded through,

with her pig tail cut off and given away

to the highest bidding dog.

With her butt torn into pieces by the snarling crowd.

Her mother told her that if she didn’t smile for this group spread,

her ass would be spanked until her nose bled

and saturated her bad apple. Her blood red apple

would be knocked out of her poisoned mouth.

Her silent burnt flesh would be devoured. Her small remnants trashed.

Juliet Cook has lived in Ohio all her life. 

She is the editor of Blood Pudding Press