Two Poems

SCOTUS refuses to hear

Texas v. Commonwealth

of Pennsylvania, State

of Georgia, State of

Michigan, State of

Wisconsin

I want to be grateful for vaccination,

For the moon landing and the golden Madonna

Of the Rocks, for gnossiennes and gnostics,

For the emotional surge of any climbing scale;

For the ravishment of a ship drawing into harbor

After a tempest, Miranda and Caliban draped

In blankets, alert to the beckoning of asylum.

We’re learning, those of us who didn’t know,

What it costs to be thankful for necessities, morning

Rising, your face still next to mine, neither of us

Afraid it’s the last day; the law holding, applied equally,

Like butter spread on the last slice, the heel you’ll only eat

When you’re old enough to ignore crusts, how close they came

To being burnt. You’re not allowed to mind that anymore.

Blast

What’s a secret between friends?

What I don’t say to you and you don’t say to me;

What we both know, the moon an unblinking eye.

You have seen the dark side and I have not.

I have followed the root of sight to the back of the brain,

A storehouse, eshet chayil. If you have seen once,

You can never go blind, visions give you

No peace. Company that won’t go home,

No matter how many hints you drop.

If we held each other tightly, too long

For anyone else to bear watching, our bodies

Would come to an understanding, a defense

Against abandonment, against air endlessly taking

The heat we shrug off like a knitted shawl.

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DAISY BASSEN is a poet, novelist, and practicing physician who lives in Rhode Island.