End of Term
End of term
Like a germ
Here I squirm
At the berm
Not so firm
Temp’ or perm’
I can worm
Like Mouse Herm’
Drang und Sturm
Pachyderm
Garfield, Nerm’
Wayback, Sherm’
teachers doodle, too
Voiceless
Who has no voice
Has had it taken away
We cry when born
We speak into the world
Who might grab that
With metal hands
And plastic intention
Abducting
Our first talent
Who has nothing
Will take yours, take
Mine
Save for the parable
And prophecy of Nathan
In which one who has
Too much
Takes more
Takes yours, takes mine
C L Couch
Nykea Aldridge
(Chicago, Illinois)
She was a mom—I
Have to say was—on
Her way to school
To register her child,
Her younger charge
In a stroller Nykea
Was also attending
She was shot and
Killed; two brothers
Are now charged
There’s so much I don’t
Know, but we know
This:
Parents should not
Die this way, nor should
Anyone
Manatee
All its age enfleshed
In deep-lined wisdom
Swims only enough
A round eye of black
Takes in everything
Takes you, takes me
Through a green liquid
Medium into inner
Space
Where energy abounds
And what the elder
Dreams
Flashes to merge with
Synaptic feelings
Action transduced into
Creation’s lightning
Welled in obsidian
Eye of the prototype
Mer-person for
A new world
“Earth Angel”
(a doo-wop song, debuted in 1954)
A melody to finish
Tiring us out, as
We dance under its
Dappling melody
We are young:
What do we care
About exhaustion
When our energy’s
Unlimited
Entropy an unknown
Peril
We go until we
Drop
We never drop
Notte
Italian night
In Umbrio, in Amatrice
At six-point-two—and now
Rest is something
Else
It is what remains
After all has
Fallen and a
Victim people
Try to rise
Nature has
Split the nation
We must go there
To reach into
Rocks and
Open earth
To remove
Into airy day
Those who must
Exhale still
In order to
Remove or rebuild
Notte bianca o in bianco,
In sleepless night
Moonrise tonight close
Above the line, tangerine
Half arc Earth-angled
Meals of Ashes
How many times
Have I unintentionally
Poisoned myself
A question that goes
Along with how many
Pounds of earth will
I have eaten in my
Lifetime
Carbon on the grill,
Dust of dirt over
Fruit purchased in the
Wild or in the store,
Condensation nuclei
I breathe or drink
In, after the raindrops
And substance
For snow ice cream
Is formed
The world’s morsels
That I have consumed
Because I thought of
Other things,
Because the present
Need was urgent
(That is, exigent):
You know, I’d gulp
The same in order to
Pay attention to the
Denizens and not so
Much malleant detritus
Of my dusty planet
The Cajun Navy
They launched in
Katrina,
Saving thousands
In their boats—
Rough sailors who
Know the way of
Waters
Others don’t
Now in Louisiana
On high ground,
Crews set sail,
Aiming toward
Smaller and
Smaller, landed
Circles
Around which
Whorl the
Helpless
Who “don’t flood”
clcouch123 
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