{"id":4837,"date":"2017-06-21T16:58:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T16:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=4837"},"modified":"2017-06-27T16:22:02","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T16:22:02","slug":"two-poems-emily-alexander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=4837","title":{"rendered":"TWO POEMS – Emily Alexander"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOOKING BACK <\/strong><\/p>\n

(after Aracelis Girmay)<\/p>\n

I thank God for the plastic table on the porch
\nof this apartment, this apartment
\nand the porch. I thank God for the light
\ncoming through the window from my living room.
\nI am thankful for this stretch of sky, stars rolling
\nlike marbles across it, the dizzy darkness, the cigarettes
\nsticking to the spit on our lips, the wine
\nrippling in the glass while Jade shakes his knee, and both of us
\nrippled, nervous things. Months from now, after
\nwe stop sleeping together, we’ll stop seeping
\ninto night like this, and our knee creases will stay
\nbent in our own beds, and I’ll miss
\nthe slight sweat of him, the dent in the mattress, and he won’t
\nnotice anything but how early, how long
\ndarkness is. I am thankful for each hum from his mouth
\nnow, and our four hip bones, and the bruise
\non my shin, and the rosemary withered in the pots I planted
\nit in. I thank God for how wholly I trust
\nthe night air between us to hold
\nour teeth in, despite our wide yawns. I want
\nto catch his breath as it unravels from him like a rope, I tie
\nmyself to it. I am thankful for the pull, how thickly
\nI believe it saves me, how thickly his breathing,
\nhow thickly it braids now into my own.
\n <\/p>\n

\n

SITTING ON THE ROOF OF THE OLD HOUSE<\/strong>
\n <\/p>\n

My sister and I crawl out the window and unroll
\ntowels to rest our elbows on. Down the street wavering<\/p>\n

lines of heat hum. We are young,
\nshin bones bruised, ponytails frayed<\/p>\n

ropes down our backs, our bodies still simple, spreading out
\non thin shoulder blades. Our mother gives<\/p>\n

us each a square of soil to dig our hands into, to grow
\npoppies, tulips, broccoli to pick and eat, but we let the boxes ruin<\/p>\n

the grass in the front yard. We want only to float above
\nthe neighborhood like lazy gods or birds or the sun<\/p>\n

flopping across the sky. The world does not owe us
\na single gleaming thing, but we don’t yet know<\/p>\n

this. Phone lines swing past gold fields, wrinkled trees
\nunfold, the raw rag of summer drapes itself over our not quite<\/p>\n

nervous bodies. It is all ours. And hours
\npulse by, seeds still in their packages, while each delicious<\/p>\n

hammer of light strikes for us, for us and our ripening skin.
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"Emily Alexander is a writer, a student, a clumsy waitress, an Idahoan, an older sister, and a self-proclaimed foodie. Her poetry can be found in NAILED Magazine, Radar Poetry<\/em>, and Vending Machine Press,<\/em> among others. She was recently awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize at the University of Idaho.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOOKING BACK (after Aracelis Girmay) I thank God for the plastic table on the porch of this apartment, this apartment and the porch. I thank God for the light coming through the window from my living room. I am thankful for this stretch of sky, stars rolling like marbles across it, the dizzy darkness, the [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-4837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-art-by-michelle-robinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4837"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4976,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4837\/revisions\/4976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}