Before, and: Octopus, and: Trying

Before After Chris Forhan

The letter and inks were not then.Nor binding, period, spaces between—all was oyster shelland butter clam. The raven's groak. The muskrat's little hand,a pattern pressed in crust of sandwas delible. No metaphor at all. We livedeach in our own body and happy there.Let me tell you how clean the rain it ran.Let me tell you: you were among us.Do you understand I speak of desire? About the skyI say nothing at all. Only the birds dreamed their falling.There was the practice of cupping things andsomeone touched your cheek. You were likenedto no object whatsoever. That was our practice, also.Then somebody said beautiful. Somebody wrote a poem.And somebody wasn't, and hurt.I know fire was involved: we built the flame and made the charthat wrote it.

Octopus After Pat Lowther

Some men are beautifullydysfunctional when you firstknow them; the lossof youth, integrity, or wife clearin each lovely unsure gestureyou mistake for tenderness

but taking flight from you: lookhow sure and purposefulin every part:their smooth machinerymoving efficiently awayas if engineered by Leonardoor a god who gave the octopus,not you, its obscuring spurtand perfect whirl of gears,its three hearts          running

Trying After Marge Piercy

The people I love best are the ones who try: the aged who riseearly each damp morning and part the clump of coffee filterswith arthritic fingers—and the others who stay uplate after working all day in retail, hot pink curl of earpressing the receiver, listening to the friend who is selfishbut in agony now. I love the men who are fathersto children, not buddies not video-game rivals not boysthemselves but clumsy men who ache over the fragility of sons,but preserve the fragility of sons despite what everyone says.I love those who feel no skill has come to them innate,who will hold their small inland dogs again and againabove the sea on vacation, to watch in amazementthe knowing animal body that paddles through air. I lovethe B+ student. The thick-chinned girl always pickedfourth when choosing sides for the softball team.The lover who says it first. The lover who says it secondafter a long, long pause. The lover who says it knowingthe answer is no, no, I am too broken. People who knitthings together. People willing to take things apartand roll all the strands of yarn into new balls for next time.The woman who loaded her backseat full of blankets and drovefor three days to the hurricane site. Even the loafer who trieshis mother's patience, who quietly speculates and eventuallydecodes the universe for us all. Believe me, I have triedto love others, the meager personalities who charm and butter,the jaded the cynics the players and floaters all safein their cages, this life no responsibility they can own.They see it too—how trying is always a risk,a kind of vulnerability some choose for ourselves becauseour fathers taught us well, our fathers taught us to tryto remain as fragile and full as this world that loves us.