Tuesday poem #693 : Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose : My 91-Year-Old Grandmother in the Hospital, Again

 

 

I imagine her pacing the hall, at times pausing before
the halo of an open door, one I cannot follow her through. 

A lifetime ago when she took my hand, and I followed her
into the twilit yard, my hair still damp and fragrant with 

Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, my Wonder Woman nightgown
swishing my ankles, how the cool earth cushioned my feet, 

grass slipping between my toes. A lifetime ago when she
pointed to the pendant of lights winking across the lawn, 

showed me how to catch and cup fireflies in the cradle
of our palms, coax them into a canning jar, fasten the cap. 

How I turned that glass jar over in my hands, marveled
at the glimmering even a child knows to name Miracle, 

How I clutched this magic to my chest, begged to carry
them to bed, a night light, my very own theater of stars. 

But there was my grandmother gently reminding me
to do the right thing. To be kind. To return to the sky 

what was never mine to keep. My grandmother
placing her hand over mine, lending me her strength 

to loosen the lid, my grandmother and I, side by side
on that darkening lawn, our palms lifting to sky, 

waving, waving goodbye.

 

 

 

Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose (she/her) is the author of two chapbooks, Wild Things (Main Street Rag, 2021) and Imago, Dei (winner, Rattle Chapbook Poetry Prize, 2022). Her poetry and prose appear in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, Room, Descant, Women Studies Quarterly, and Clockhouse, among others. She is the recipient of Descant’s 2025 Betsy Colquitt Poetry Prize, among other awards. Elizabeth lives in Rochester, NY, where she coordinates the Creative Writing Program at Monroe Community College. Find Elizabeth at www.elizabethjohnstonambrose.com and on Bluesky @poetlady74

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #692 : Penn Kemp : Life Sketches

 

 

The poem begins with figures of speech
or figures of fun, a fig newton, a figment
imagination flares on mind’s old screen.

We find comfort in naming, cataloging,
pinning butterflies to walls that our own
mind designs, an habitual track to follow. 

My work is the translator’s, to move one
sense into another’s realm, to navigate
mists of borderland beyond boundary. 

One sense is felt in terms of another be-
fore the words slip into the familiar rut
of what has already been heard or seen. 

Extrasensory perception extends feelers
beyond the usual grasp of the known in
to whatever has not yet been figured out. 

Intrasensory perception reaches between
the possibilities, dipping toes in the water.
We live along a grand colour spectrum. 

Between infrared and ultraviolet falls all
our known worlds. Beyond lies shades
of inarticulate particle, particulate matter 

that has not yet come into being, formed
like the jellyfish cell that chooses its own
destination, eye or trailing tentacle feeler. 

Figuratively speaking, in figure drawing.
Drawing out nuance, drawing on resource
not yet articulated. Drawn toward the new.

 

 

 

Penn Kemp [photo credit: Bryan Lavery] has participated in Canadian cultural life for more than sixty years— writing, editing, and publishing poetry, fiction, and plays. Her first book of poetry, Bearing Down, was published by Coach House, 1972, followed the next year by IS 14, the first anthology of women’s writing in Canada.  The League of Canadian Poets honored  Penn Kemp with their Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award (2025), as Spoken Word Artist of the year (2015), and as a foremother of Canadian Poetry. Recent poetry collections include: Ordinary / Moving (Silver Bow Publishing, 2025); Lives of Dead Poets ( in beloved above/ground press, 2025); INCREMENTALLY (Hem Press, 2024); POEMS IN RESPONSE TO PERIL, an anthology for Ukraine (co-editor, Pendas Productions, 2023); P.S. (with Sharon Thesen, Gap Riot Press, 2022).

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #691 : Keep in Touch : Elena Zhang

 

Keep in touch
When summer ends 
I took the
Bus it smelled
Of bone and
Birth the first
Day you left
Me I was
Drinking desire so
Long like memory
Like teeth

 

 

 

Elena Zhang is a Chinese American writer and mother living in Chicago. Her work can be found in HAD, The Citron Review, and X-R-A-Y, among other publications. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and was selected for Best Microfiction 2024 and 2025.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan