By Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Like the horn you played in Catholic school
the city will open its mouth and cry
out. Don't worry 'bout nothing. Don't mean
no thing. It will leave you stunned
as a fighter with his eyes swelled shut
who's told he won the whole damn purse.
It will feel better than any floor
that's risen up to meet you. It will rise
like Easter bread, golden and familiar
in your grandmother's hands. She'll come back,
heaven having been too far from home
to hold her. O it will be beautiful.
Every girl will ask you to dance and the boys
won't kill you for it. Shake your head.
Dance until your bones clatter. What a prize
you are. What a lucky sack of stars.
Gabrielle Calvocoressi, "At Last the New Arriving" from Apocalyptic Swing. Copyright © 2009 by Gabrielle Calvocoressi. Reprinted by permission of Persea Books.
Source: Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poets for the Next Generation (Viking Press, 2015)
Poet Bio
More By This Poet
Miss you. Would like to grab that chilled tofu we love.
Do not care if you bring only your light body.
Would just be so happy to sit at the table
and talk about the menu. Miss you.
Wish we could bet which chilis they’ll put
on the cubes of tofu. Our favorite.
Sometimes green. Sometimes...
More Poems about Activities
Golden Hour
When you caught one to keep,
we took it home and I asked you to teach me.
You showed me how to spike the brain—
I thanked the fish, looked away, pressed down.
We bled it, shaved away the scales,
severed meat from bone.
I’m afraid...
A Wing and a Prayer
We thought the birds were singing louder. We were almost certain they
were. We spoke of this, when we spoke, if we spoke, on our zoom screens
or in the backyard with our podfolk. Dang, you hear those birds? Don’t
they sound loud?...
More Poems about Arts & Sciences
Listening in Deep Space
We've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.
We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers...
Self-Portrait with Sylvia Plath’s Braid
Some women make a pilgrimage to visit it
in the Indiana library charged to keep it safe.
I didn’t drive to it; I dreamed it, the thick braid
roped over my hands, heavier than lead.
My own hair was long for years.
Then I became...
More Poems about Living
Spring Snow
A spring snow coincides with plum blossoms.
In a month, you will forget, then remember
when nine ravens perched in the elm sway in wind.
I will remember when I brake to a stop,
and a hubcap rolls through the intersection.
An angry man grinds...
At the Equinox
The tide ebbs and reveals orange and purple sea stars.
I have no theory of radiance,
but after rain evaporates
off pine needles, the needles glisten.
In the courtyard, we spot the rising shell of a moon,
and,...