April 21: Coconut
Martha
Coconut
Paul Hostovsky
Bear with me I
want to tell you
something about
happiness
it's hard to get at
but the thing is
I wasn't looking
I was looking
somewhere else
when my son found it
in the fruit section
and came running
holding it out
in his small hands
asking me what
it was and could we
keep it it only
cost 99 cents
hairy and brown
hard as a rock
and something swishing
around inside
and what on earth
and where on earth
and this was happiness
this little ball
of interest beating
inside his chest
this interestedness
beaming out
from his face pleading
happiness
and because I wasn't
happy I said
to put it back
because I didn't want it
because we didn't need it
and because he was happy
he started to cry
right there in aisle
five so when we
got it home we
put it in the middle
of the kitchen table
and sat on either
side of it and began
to consider how
to get inside of it
----
More like this:
+ Egg, C.G. Hanzlicek
+ Bearhug, Michael Ondaatje
+ This Morning in a Morning Voice, Todd Boss
+ Will You?, Carrie Fountain
Crack open the past:
2025: An Improvement in Stairs, Mairead Small Staid
2024: April Morning, Jonathan Wells
2023: What I Did Wrong, Marie Howe
2022: This Morning, Jay Wright
2021: Kiss of the Sun, Mary Ruefle
2020: Teaching English from an Old Composition Book, Gary Soto
2019: Easter, Jill Alexander Essbaum
2018: Annunciation, Marie Howe
2017: The Promise, Marie Howe
2016: In the Woods, Kathryn Simmonds
2015: Heat, Jane Hirshfield
2014: What Remains, Ellery Akers
2013: 30th Birthday, Alice Notley
2012: Untitled [I closed the book and changed my life], Bruce Smith
2011: The Forties, Franz Wright
2010: Prayer of the Backhanded, Jericho Brown
2009: A Primer, Bob Hicok
2008: Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry, Howard Nemerov
2007: Open Letter to the Muse, Kristy Bowen
2006: A Sad Child, Margaret Atwood
2005: The Crunch, Charles Bukowski