Today the Pleasures
Today the pleasures are too numerous to name.
Walking over the bridge and up the drive
to get the mail, then setting down the packages
to open by the front door, a fat swath of sun
falling against my arm as I open a box
of two slim volumes of poems, then a box
with blue ink refills for my favorite pen,
one that glides so nicely across the pages
of my grief. All this, I think all this, and also
the broccoli soup I made with bone broth
from last month’s turkey, blended to a creamy green.
Yes, the world is falling down, death taking
a stroll down every street. And yes, it’s getting hotter
by the hour. And still, today the wind
has quieted and the dogs next door announce
their gods, who, so far, keep lifting the sun
and letting down (just enough) rain.
Danusha Laméris’s first book, The Moons of August, was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. She’s also the author of Bonfire Opera, a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Prize, and winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award. Some of her work has been published in Best American Poetry, The New York Times, American Poetry Review, and POETRY Magazine. Recipient of the 2020 Lucille Clifton Legacy Award, she is on the faculty of Pacific University’s Low-Residency MFA Program. Her third book, Blade by Blade, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press.
