the compassion anthology
  • About Us
    • Submission Guidelines
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  • Letter from the Editor
  • Poetry
    • Amirah Al Wassif
    • Zakia el-Marmouke
    • Rachelle Parker
    • Michelle Messina Reale
    • Todd Davis
    • Lori Levy
    • Tim Suermondt
    • Amy Small-McKinney
    • Chad W. Lutz
    • Brenda Yates
    • Carolyn Martin
  • Fiction
    • Leo Tolstoy
    • Leslie Contreras Schwartz
    • K. Alan Leitch
    • Laton Carter
    • Dave Barrett
  • Essays
    • Cathy Warner
    • Serenity Schoonover
    • Review of the Movie What Do You Believe Now?
  • Art
    • The Masters
    • Amantha Tsaros
    • Christopher Woods
    • Ann Marie Sekeres
  • Archives
    • Spring 2019, Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2018 Letter from the Editor
    • Summer 2017 Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2017 Letter from the Editor
    • Summer 2016 Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2016 Letter from the Editor
    • Summer 2015 Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2015 Letter from the Editor
    • Spring 2015 Letter from the Editor
    • Exhibits/Fundraisers 2015
    • Poetry, 2019 >
      • Robbie Gamble
      • Robert Okaji
      • Nicholas Samaras
      • Gabriella Brand
      • Sarah Wernsing
      • Jen Karetnick
      • Cindy Veach
      • Seres Jaime Magana
    • Fiction, 2019 >
      • Ruth Mukwana
      • Andrea Gregory
      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Rebecca Keller
    • Essays, 2019 >
      • Review of the movie GIFT
      • Jalina Mhyana
      • Stephen Dau
      • Alexandra Grabbe
      • Olive Paige
    • Art, 2019 >
      • Krisztina Asztalos
      • Rute Ventura
      • Laura Gurton
    • Winter 2018 Art >
      • Dawid Planeta
      • Liliana Washburn
      • Ellen Halloran
    • Winter 2018 Fiction >
      • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
      • Herman Melville
    • Winter 2018 Essays >
      • Nikki Hodgson
      • Ciara Hall
      • Sara Roizen
      • Review of Claudine Nash's The Wild Essential
    • Winter 2018 Poetry >
      • Parker Anthony
      • Crystal Condakes Karlberg
      • Julia Lisella
      • Cynthia Atkins
      • Claudine Nash
    • Essays Summer 2017 >
      • Interview with Gail Entrekin
      • Patricia Reis
      • John Nelson
      • Mary Baures
      • Monette Bebow-Reinhard
      • M.J. Iuppa
    • Fiction Summer 2017 >
      • Jean Ryan
      • Daniel Hudon
      • Ray Keifetz
      • Anne Elliott
      • C.S. Malerich
      • Sascha Morrell
    • Art Summer 2017 >
      • Sara Roizen
      • Jill Slaymaker
      • John Mark Jennings
      • Janel Houton
      • Brandon Gorski
      • Tara White
      • Nancy Dudley
      • Elisabetta Lucchi
    • Poetry Summer 2017 >
      • Megan Merchant
      • Joey Gould
      • Claudine Nash
      • M.R. Smith
      • Kim Aubrey
      • Vivian Wagner
    • Winter 2017 Poetry >
      • Dan King
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Sam Bresnahan
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Danny Romanovitz
      • Kyle Quinn
    • Winter 2017 Art >
      • Elliott Grinnell
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Brendan Brown
      • Lauren Waisnor
    • Winter 2017 Essays >
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Eddie Marshall
      • Sofia Colvin
      • Ishita Pandey
      • Mohsin Tunio
    • Summer 2016 Fiction >
      • Jyotsna Sreenivasan
    • Summer 2016 Art The Women Artists and Writers Exhibit
    • Summer 2016 Poetry >
      • Colleen Michaels
      • Jennifer Markell
      • Tara Masih
      • Holly Guran
      • Heather Nelson
      • Bahareh Amidi
      • Alison Stone
      • Julia Travers
      • Amy Jo Trier-Walker
    • Summer 2016 Essays >
      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Katelyn Gilbert
      • Kim-Marie Walker
      • Bahareh Amidi
    • Winter 2016 Fiction >
      • Blue Vinyl, Green Vinyl
      • The Cresting Water
    • Winter 2016 Art >
      • San Giovanni D'Asso Landscape Paintings
      • It's All About the River
      • Jellyfish Sculptural Drawings
    • Winter 2016 Poetry >
      • Poems from Songs in the Storm
    • Winter 2016 Essays >
      • The Gleaners
      • The Aliveness Project
      • Named
    • Summer 2015 Fiction >
      • The Cloak
      • Sanctuary
    • Summer 2015 Art >
      • Environmental Art
      • Compassion in the Midst of Violence
      • Burn Myself Completely for Him and Souls
      • Eye of Oneness
      • Stepping Forward
    • Summer 2015 Poetry >
      • Poem With a Question From Neruda and INDICTMENT
      • The Humans
      • Afghan Boy and other poems
      • Reparations
      • Transference and other poems
    • Summer 2015 Essays >
      • The Ineffable Aspects of Forgiveness
      • He Was Better Than I’ll Ever Be
      • A Voice in the Desert
    • Winter 2015 Fiction >
      • White Heron
      • Freeing a Little of the Madness
    • Winter 2015 Art >
      • Cascade of Care and Life
      • Sentience
      • A Paternal Instant
      • Aurora, Paloma, and the Melangolo Tree
      • Seated Pose
      • Antigone's Map
      • Ladder
    • Winter 2015 Poetry >
      • Dissolution of the Soviet Union
      • Nicknames
      • Stopped at a Light,
      • Why mate for life? Red crown crane
      • The Prisoner
      • Stigmata
      • "Oh don't," she said. "It's cold."
      • Convene
    • Winter 2015 Essays >
      • The Forgiveness Project
      • A Stranger on a Subway
      • A Journey to Compassion
      • The Question of Compassion
      • Reflections on a Childhood Deforested
      • Click, Click, Click
Therapeutic
by Colleen Michaels
 
“Therapeutic” was previously published in the Mom Egg Review.
 
I decide to tell my new nurse at the Coumadin Clinic
how she looks a bit like a poet I really admire. 
We Google, and she agrees, something in the shoulders, 
maybe around the eyes. She lets the guy with the walker
wait while we talk a bit about poetry and heart failure. 
 
Now when I go to give her the finger, let her test my blood,
be patient, the room clots with this compassion, a poem.  
I've learned what to do in a car accident, if things go bad.
She takes my hand, and tells me it might go bad,
but if it does, she says, we will know how to fix it.  
 
 
 
Conflict Resolution Through Soup
by Colleen Michaels
 
“Conflict Resolution Through Soup” was previously published in Paterson Literary Review.
 
When the political poet comes to my school
I make him soup, a vegan miracle
of organic carrots and ancient grains,
and he hugs me.  I dodge his appetite
for a third-party debate, labor unions, the sweat shop talk.
My compassion is measured out in kitchen tools;
this soup is brimming with opinion.
 
My soup shifts shape in the cauldron. 
I sagely puree the unsavory and sour
into palatable luxury. Shoe stringed onions
coated in ale and cheddar cling to my spoons.
Third graders unknowingly eat kale at my table.
My soup turns battles into cook-offs, whisking
aggression into bisques and soft broths. 
  
Down to a simmer, I turn the dry cough
of neighbors no longer warm to pot lucks
with my chicken stock and generous doughy elbows.
I slip ginger in the pockets of my enemy
and fill the lean bellies of burglars at night.
 
For my father I serve something milky
to calm an ulcer from daughters who over salt.
My mother, I give her enough pepper to occupy her tongue.
Now all happily digging for clams. All floating oyster crackers.
 
On nights when my love moves to his far side of our bed
his bones no longer against my belly – I serve mulligatawny.
Like silk and fire in the mouth, he comes back to me hungry.
 
When we are poor and at the end,
I’ll take those saffron threads from the cupboard,
drown them deep in an old family stew,
take one last viking stance in steam.
 

 
 The Last Bath of the First Snow
by Colleen Michaels
 
“The Last Bath of the First Snow” was previously published in Literary Mama. 
 
This might be the last bath we will take
together, so of course I say yes
after shoveling and traveling
from your north to south pole,
a trudge between the mounds
made from the porch to the car.
 
Anyway, if I keep you out any longer
you’ll get too cold and we might dig too deep,
reveal the grit of gravel that embarrasses
our perfect journey like something caught
in between a tooth. A spoiler.
 
We leave the snow to its clean perfection,
let nature and traffic be the ones to muck it up.
It won’t always be this smooth,
so we take that bath.
 
The house is warm
the door so strong between climates.
We take off all our layers
and there are many
probably more than you need.
 
In the hallway I ask you to stay 
near me and that's all you know you do.
We unroll our cuffs and let the matted
snow, pats of chilled butter, give up on the carpet.
 
Your pants are a thick wet
under that your PJ's are sopped too.
Your little red thighs cold to the touch.
 
You delight in the red tinge of my skin,
knowing that you are of me.
We run up the stairs in just our undies
and you love this part, think it’s better than toast.
You ask if we can hold hands. Of course we can hold hands.
We laugh as we try to fit our cold compressed
bodies on the same bare step
your happiness is in your mouth,
                                                                                               
the way all your square
first teeth line up.
 
Do you know too
that this might be the last time
with me in the bath?
You give yourself over to your little girl life.
We sing about riding in the car. I’m the driver.
I suspect you give this one to me.
Our knees sink under the water. A tight fit,
our different displacements.
 
You don’t reach out for me with a baby’s need,
but you let me mother you.
I wash your hair
letting the water
swerve around your perfect ear
as if you are snow
that I don’t want to melt.
 
 
Colleen Michaels's poems have been made into installations on shower curtains, bar coasters, and the stairs to Crane Beach in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Her work has been published in Barrelhouse, The Paterson Literary Review, Cider Press Review, The Museum of Americana, and others. Colleen directs the Writing Studio at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts, where she hosts The Improbable Places Poetry Tour bringing poetry to unlikely places like tattoo parlors, laundromats, and swimming pools.

 
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