A reading room for poems
Read something.
Say something.
Poems published here are free to read and free to post — no account needed to read a word of it. The response you leave is worth more than the count of it, so length decides whether it sits with the critiques or with the short notes, and nothing on this site can be bought.
Waiting on a reader
12 poems have been published here and not yet had a single critique.
Theme
AnyLoveMemoryAngerDeathFaithLossWorkFamilyHomeIdentityNatureTimeDesireHopeJourneySolitudeWarWonderFearFriendship
+14 more
Form
AnyFree verseSonnetLyric poemAcrosticElegyOdeProse poemVillanelleBalladBlank verseEkphrasticHaikuLimerickSestina
+8 more
00Limerick for Register FourThere's a girl on register four
who has memorised everyone's store —Waiting on a reader01Thirty PercentThe forecast gives it seventy
and my mother brings the washing in.1 critique02AppetiteI wanted the house.
I wanted the man in the house.Waiting on a reader03What He Would Say About the WarHe would say the food.
He would say the cold, and then the food again,Waiting on a reader04Ode to the Bag of Ice at the Gas StationPraise the chest freezer humming by the door
with its one word, ICE, and its whole life's work:1 critique05Sunday, Nobody ComingThe house does its own noises:
the fridge, the pipes, the third stair.Waiting on a reader06Studio Portrait, Accra, 1974In the photograph my mother is nineteen
and has not met the country I was born in.1 critique07Elegy with a Radio Left OnThey left the radio on in the room
for three days after, because nobody1 critique08The Third AirportThe third airport is where the language goes.
Not the first — the first is only leaving,Waiting on a reader09Ballad of the Second BoatThey sent the first boat out at dawn;
it made the pier by noon.1 critique10Sestina for a Flat I RentedI still have the key to a house with a different door.
It was not mine for more than a year.1 critique11I love you differently.I can say
that i love a lot of thingsWaiting on a reader12The Year We Stopped Setting a Place for HimThere is a year, and then there is the year after, and somewhere between them a hand stops reaching for the extra plate without anyone deciding it should. Nobody announced it. My mother simply set the table for five instead of six, and none of us said the number out loud, because saying it would have made the empty chair a subject instead of a fact. I used to think faith meant believing he was somewhere. Now I think it means setting five places and trusting that the missing one still counts, somehow, in a ledger none of us can read.1 critique13What the Neighbors HeardNot the plates. We never broke plates.
What they heard was quieter than that —Waiting on a reader14Sonnet for the Salt I Didn't BuyI balanced the whole week on what I saved:
the coffee brewed at home, the walked-not-driven mile,Waiting on a reader15Small InheritanceHer keys still turn the lock, though she does not.
Once, this hallway held more furniture than light.Waiting on a reader16Two Words for RainMy mother's language has two words for rain —
one for the kind that asks permission,1 critique17What My Mother Prayed in the Other LanguageShe prayed in the language I was taught to lose,
soft in the kitchen, before the six o'clock news.1 critique18InventoryThirty-one years of a workshop
comes down to boxes labeledWaiting on a reader19The Long Way to Forgiving My FatherHe taught me how to check the oil
by never once explaining why,1 critique20Sonnet, UnsentI wrote the letter four times over, each
draft calmer than the one that came before,1 critique21Porch Lightthe porch light left on
long after the last goodnight —Waiting on a reader22Closing ShiftNobody tells you retail teaches you geometry —
how to fold a shirt into a rectangle nobody will remember,Waiting on a reader23Come HomeCome back before the coffee's gone cold on the sill,
over every excuse I keep pouring instead of drinking it.1 critique24Villanelle for the Unanswered PrayerYou do not answer, and I keep asking anyway.
The silence has its own liturgy by now —1 critique25Instructions for Leaving a CountryTake the photographs out of their frames; the frames are heavier than the years. Take the recipe your mother never wrote down, which means take your mother, which means take the morning she stood over the pot and would not say how much. Leave the plates. Leave the good ones especially — you will not be the kind of person who has occasions for a while.1 critique26Sonnet for the Unpaid InvoiceI wrote to you in April, then in May,
and twice in June, politely, with a date.2 critiques27Kitchen, 3 a.m.The fridge hums its one note
and I stand in its light1 critique
Three ways in
4 poemsWorking HoursWhat a job costs, in poems by people who have had one.Chosen by Ilse Brandt3 poemsSmall PrayersFaith as habit, inheritance and argument, not as certainty.Chosen by Nadia Osei3 poemsWhat We Mean By LoveThree ways the word gets used before anyone agrees what it means.Chosen by Dev Ramanathan2 poemsNight WorkWritten close to the dark, where the odd and the exact meet.Chosen by Mara Okonkwo2 poemsWhat Outlasts UsMonuments, memory, and the weather that keeps going after we stop.Chosen by Dev Ramanathan2 poemsSmall HopesPoems that hold on to something, plainly and without arguing for it.Chosen by Ilse Brandt