Free Verse Read online

  I’M GLAD IT’S SUMMER

  Who could sit at a desk on a day like this?

  Who could focus on pages through this beam of sun?

  Full of anger, hope, and fear,

  I am faced with a choice: hold fast or run?

  ELSEWHERE

  This road in front of Hubert’s house,

  empty in the evening light,

  leads to a two-lane that leads to a highway,

  goes places I’ve never seen, but might.

  CAUGHT

  Lights flash,

  sirens bleat,

  I get caught

  on Main Street.

  CLOSE SUPERVISION

  Hubert and Shirley

  come out of their haze.

  They watch me closer

  for all of three days.

  Sasha.

  She’s lost.

  She walks along,

  looking up at clouds,

  quiet.

  Anger,

  pointless, nauseous,

  waits in shadow

  like an evil spirit.

  Always.

  WHAT FAMILY DOES

  Leave.

  They do.

  They all do.

  That’s what I know

  now.

  MIKEY

  Kid,

  lost, alone,

  went somewhere else.

  Hope we find him

  soon.

  Dear Judy,

  I walked to the Burger Bargain today.

  The whole place smelled like onions.

  The ladies there can cut onions without crying,

  knives slashing down, whacking on the

  chopped-up cutting board.

  Bam! Like a baby falling from her chair.

  Wham! Like a car door slamming.

  I sort of wonder if

  the day you figured out you were able

  to slice into onions without crying

  was the day you decided

  it was okay

  to leave.

  Dear Ben,

  I remember the little things

  about you, like your dirty fingernails,

  your card games on the coffee table,

  the way you spread your dinner to the

  edges of your plate to make it look

  like you took more when you really

  left the most for us.

  I’ve forgotten other things about you,

  like the words you choose, and if you like poems,

  and the meter and rhyme and rhythm

  of your voice.

  Dear Mikey,

  I guess I sort of understand why

  you haven’t come back yet.

  If I had me for a cousin,

  I might not think about

  coming back, either.

  Still.

  Maybe you’ll change your mind someday?

  Maybe you’ll change your mind today?

  Dear City Planners,

  I don’t get

  why you picked

  this exact rock

  in this exact valley.

  Had a squirrel already claimed

  all the other rocks

  in all the other valleys?

  Dear Dr. Shaw,

  Mr. Powell swears

  you know your stuff,

  even though you give names

  to things that should have

  other names.

  You call it “depression.”

  You call it “anxiety.”

  I call it “Look what happened.”

  I call it “Everybody leaves.”

  You send me home

  with orange bottles

  that rattle in the console

  of Hubert’s old truck

  on the quiet, quiet, quiet

  ride back.

  This medicine

  is not going to help

  unless it can bring back

  the missing

  and what Pastor Ramey calls

  the “gone home.”

  Dear Michael,

  Dear Shirley,

  I wish you would lay off

  the stupid apples already.

  Also, why must you

  stomp through the living room

  at six thirty a.m. on a Saturday?

  Can’t you tell I’m sleeping?

  Dear Michael,

  Dear Anthony,

  It was nice the way

  you started to walk over to me

  on the final day of school

  like you wanted to say something.

  It was nice, too, that you stopped

  and turned away.

  I might have cried.

  I might have spoken.

  See you in August.

  Dear Michael.

  ONLINE

  Shirley sits on her blue chair,

  but she doesn’t notice who’s around her,

  nor does she care.

  FRAGILE

  There is peace in this dwelling

  as long as we don’t discuss Mikey.

  If we do, there is yelling.

  HOW JULY FELT

  Bug-loud days

  loomed wide open, filled me with panic.

  I’m not okay.

  IF I DON’T WRITE

  The line between calm and not gets blurry.

  I shake and get lost in my head.

  I breathe quick and I worry.

  MAKING HUBERT MAD

  I stayed at the grocery store too long.

  Hubert thought I was someplace else,

  but he was wrong.

  THIS PLACE

  Michael wanted to leave so bad

  that staying never felt possible.

  I wonder how I’d feel if it had.

  GRACE DANIELS,

  wife of miner Barry Daniels,

  waits with other family members

  outside a southern West Virginia

  elementary school.

  NOT

  intended as a substitute

  for medical care. Consult

  a physician if symptoms

  persist.

  FOUNDED

  by Hat Casswell

  in 1843, the town

  of Caboose predates

  the state of West

  Virginia.

  MISSING

  since May.

  Last seen in

  Alley Rush

  wearing

  blue T-shirt

  and stonewashed

  (nuh-uh, just faded)

  jeans

  (and an innocent face).

  START OF AUGUST

  with

  record highs

  (and new lows)

  PHYLLIS

  Says she’ll still love me

  even when the other kid

  comes to stay next month.

  I have no rights to Phyllis,

  so I don’t know why I’m sad.

  UNSAID

  There are many rules

  to writing good poetry.

  I don’t always know

  how to fit inside those rules.

  Sometimes things get left unsaid.

  MICHAEL

  Why do all the things

  I write come back to Michael?

  Why do all the things

  I write come back to Michael?

  There is no one named Michael.

  HARLESS HOUSEHOLD

  Nobody is sleeping.

  Most of us are weeping.

  There are secrets not worth keeping.

  NIGHT FIGHTS

  Hubert and Shirley scream a
nd howl,

  yell some words that are very foul,

  then one or the other throws in the towel.

  FALLING APART

  Hubert finally goes back to work.

  The girls are bouncing off the walls, berserk.

  Even Shirley’s lost her smirk.

  AUGUST

  Summer waves the edges

  of Phyllis’s trimmed hedges.

  We’re all balanced on ledges.

  MIKEY

  I miss baking muffins and playing with the dog.

  I can’t think clearly with him gone.

  I am lost in a fog.

  MICHAEL

  When I think of my older brother

  dying of smoke inhalation,

  I can’t breathe and I can’t rhyme.

  BACK TO SCHOOL

  For the first two days, everyone is thrilled

  to see each other as the doors are sealed.

  Even in the warm air, I feel chilled.

  WHAT I DID

  on my summer vacation

  by sasha harless

  i forgot how to use

  the following things

  punctuation

  capitalization

  and the sound

  of my voice

  i forgot how to

  cook muffins

  i forgot how to babysit

  and how to clean out sheds

  and how to save money for guitars

  and i forgot again and again

  which house i live in

  THERE IS A NEW KID

  next door, and she is

  Mikey’s age, and she is

  beautiful, with

  calm, combed hair

  and sweet, dimpled cheeks

  and, as far as I can tell,

  normal eating habits.

  Phyllis shines with love.

  The two of them invite me over,

  but I shake my head and stay on Hubert’s front porch,

  alone except for his work boots.

  ASSIGNMENT

  Now that school’s in

  and I still won’t talk,

  Mr. Powell asks me to

  write something down,

  and my new English teacher

  asks me to write something down.

  Mr. Powell wants my goals for the year.

  Mr. Hart wants my goals for English class,

  and what I think a fair grading system would be,

  and what I hope to learn and accomplish.

  It seems like a lot of faith to put

  in a silent eighth grader.

  Isn’t he the one

  who went to college

  for this?

  THE STORY OF MY LIFE

  This is the assignment

  for the second week of school:

  we are required to write our history,

  the story of our lives. I watch

  my classmates folded over their notebooks.

  I watch pencils scratch. I watch heads get scratched.

  This boy in black, he is looking at the ceiling

  and smiling

  as if there is a great secret written there.

  I think his life has been interesting.

  I think I would like to read his story.

  The girls in the corner

  look lost. You can’t understand

  what makes a good story

  if you’ve never starred in one,

  or at least been a particularly memorable

  (sometimes tragic)

  supporting character.

  INTERVENTION

  At least that’s what it feels like

  the day Jaina and Anthony corner me

  by the lockers in the English wing.

  “We’re worried about you, Sasha.”

  “You still haven’t given me a poem for the contest.

  We all lost the one in May. We’ve got to

  kick butt in the August round!”

  “Right . . .” Jaina looks at him

  like he’s grown another head.

  “And also, you don’t talk anymore.”

  They maybe should have planned

  their intervention a little better.

  I don’t say anything,

  and Jaina shrugs, and walks slowly away.

  “I’m here if you need me,”

  she says as she goes,

  but she gets farther away as she says it.

  When she’s gone, Anthony waits

  and does this half smile, like he already knows

  what I’m about to hand him.

  He gives my notebook back after class the next day,

  with a note written on the first blank page:

  Unless you stop me, I’m sending three of these to the contest.

  Please don’t stop me.

  I’m glad it’s still you in there.

  10. FREE VERSE AND MIXED FORMS

  Now that summer’s over,

  there’s no newsletter to help.

  I have to figure out for myself

  how to say what needs to be said.

  —STARTED AUGUST 26

  ON WEEKENDS

  We look for two Michael Harlesses

  on the streets of Beckley

  (the kids throwing Frisbees,

  and popping balloons,

  and chasing each other,

  splashing through the fountain).

  We look for Mikey and we look—

  I look

  for my Michael,

  who can’t possibly have left me

  this alone

  for this long.

  POINTLESS?

  Search

  without end.

  Kicking through stones,

  peering into every face.

  Failing.

  THERE IS A COLLEGE CAMPUS HERE

  And I dream of graduating

  and I dream of seeing Mikey graduate

  and I dream of both of us living life happy,

  free of our sad past.

  Today is not that day.

  Today I hang flier after flier after flier

  on power poles.

  AUTHORITIES

  They say they have not given up on him,

  but every week the spotlight continues to dim,

  and hope spreads thin.

  WHAT I HEARD SOMEONE SAY

  “Poor folks,

  thinking that kid

  will ever come back.

  That kid is dead, man.”

  SECRET

  I am secretly a bad person.

  I am secretly a bad cousin.

  I am secretly awful.

  Let me tell you why.

  I have come

  to expect, to rely on,

  to enjoy,

  our trips up

  Beckley way.

  STEPS OF THE BECKLEY COURTHOUSE

  I sit and wait to be picked up.

  Hubert is checking on some things

  he doesn’t want me to hear.

  There are fluffy springtime clouds

  in the late summer sky,

  and kids shuffle by

  like they have all the

  time in the world.

  A kid about fifteen or sixteen

  walks from the Go-Mart with a

  Snickers bar and a Coke.

  One bite gone. Then, later,

  a sip. Like the treat

  and the perfect afternoon

  will last forever.

  11. HAIKU ONCE MORE

  I have been too wild.

  I will rein in my poems.

  I will write haiku.


  —SEPTEMBER 2

  NOT ME

  We got grades today.

  It is the moment of truth

  for people who care.

  C-MINUS

  I was supposed to

  write about my own life, not

  other people’s lives.

  NOTES

  Jaina passes one

  to Lisa and Lisa laughs

  and writes her one back.

  TODAY

  Windowpanes rattled

  with anger and thunder when

  the sun went away.

  JAINA’S QUESTION

  “Sasha, why don’t you

  talk no more?” she asks again.

  Wish I could tell her.

  12. CINQUAIN ONCE MORE

  —SEPTEMBER 9

  This

  is the

  worst day I’ve

  had in a long

  time.

  Darkness

  is everywhere.

  In the sky.

  Here in my head.

  Midnight.

  Home

  was Mikey.

  Home was Phyllis;

  was Ben, Judy, and

  Michael.

  Teacher

  in math

  thinks I’m stupid.

  She tells me she

  cares.

  Rules

  of poetry

  insist I shouldn’t

  break the cinquain pattern.

  Who the hell says?

  Panic

  is sneaky.

  Creeps up slowly

  like a hunting cat.

  Pounces.

  13. TANKAS ONCE MORE

  —SEPTEMBER 16

  VISITORS

  A knock at the door!

  Sometimes the police visit

  to keep us informed.

  Sometimes it’s Pastor Ramey,

  who brings toys for my cousins.