Maya Janson
Poems by Maya Janson
On the Mercy Me Planet
Drop into a world of half-blown theories and rants flung at the neap tide, a place where herons take to the sky like shirts flapping on a clothesline when the old rope comes undone. Share a quiet moment as the seamstress, done with her mending, lays down her silver thimble. Maya Janson's poems offer luminous reflections on life’s wild contradictions and joys.
About Maya Janson
Maya Janson’s first book, Murmur & Crush, was published by Hedgerow Books. Her poems have appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies and she has received fellowships from MacDowell and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She lives in Western Massachusetts where she has worked as a lecturer in creative writing at Smith College and as a community mental health nurse.
On the Mercy Me Planet
by Maya Janson
It’s reassuring to see the moon
come up out of the frozen ball field,
free itself from the Little League
scoreboard and plywood dugout.
No one’s keeping score but I am counting
the hours, each day’s shrinkage.
I’m tempted to linger but my feet are cold,
my boots being made from synthetics
instead of Spanish leather.
To dawdle, my mind inclined, leaning
against a tree, the way we used to.
Leaning while someone kissed me,
sent me into a bank of fleeing clouds.
Removed from my flank the shard.
Like Saint Jerome pulling a thorn from
the lion’s paw. My father swore he saw
a pride on a beach in Africa, the cats
pacing the sand where the waves broke.
When he was a GI drinking shots
with his buddies. Broke and drunk.
Talking bullets, shrapnel.
Things that enter the body with conviction.
Afflictions and kisses. Kisses, afflictions.