One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now. This month, One Poem Only presents One Poem After, featuring selected poems written in response to the poems shared during National Poetry Month. Each piece began as a conversation with another poem and became something entirely its own. Today’s poem is The Bee’s Knees by Amelia Wicker after To Be a Salamander by Rachel Turney. Read the full poems on Substack.

More from Amelia Wicker ↓

• @poison.or.grapes_poetry on Instagram

More from Rachel Turney ↓

• @turneytalks on Instagram
• Rachel Turney on Substack
• Her books, Record Player Life (the b-side), Retired Wannabe Club Kid, and Women Making Soup Together are out now
• You can discover more on her website: TurneyTalks.com

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

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Feed yourself poetry every day.

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

after Avalon

More from Rachel Turney ↓

• @turneytalks on Instagram
• Rachel Turney on Substack
• Her book, Women Making Soup Together, is out now with Vinegar Press

And now for the poem this was written after.

More from Avalon ↓

• @avalonspoems on Instagram
• Her book, Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it weird, is available now

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry shows us what we need. Thank you for being part of the experience.

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise. Today's poem is by Kay Medway after Amy Laessle-Morgan -

Everywhere, a surround

of mirror glass blue.

River rain, grey, falls

from a peak

with a stain

of rose window,

and the stickiness,

syrup of a theatre fair.

I was held

in a bridge moment,

thin black iron rail

and all, veering

from waters to stone.

A water thread

of moment.

Sweetened air, as if by berries,

a safe steam of teapot smoke,

a tale passed till as a tradition

as a wind.

More from Kay Medway ↓

• @medwaykay on Instagram

And now for the poem this was written after: Butterscotch by Amy Laessle-Morgan -

Somewhere between the amberblush streetlight of Division

and the butterscotch stain on the back of my throat,

there was a glasslike moment

nearbent

but not yet breaking.

Half-formed, honeydrunk on the hour

slipping past the soft machinery of becoming

unbecoming

rewinding

rethreading.

Warm, butterfat air washing in subtle

breathing through the cracked window taxicab

teacuplight broken open on my cheek

whispering nothing is permanent

except the way we almost changed.

There was always something burning—

toast

bridges

the last good version of me I kept resuscitating

with mouth-to-mouth-watering memory.

Tonight, I’ll wear that dress you loved

in the color of skinbrushed apologies

while the past rides shotgunsilent

adjusting the mirror like it still matters how I see myself

because when mirrors grow honest

the corridors echo less—

as everyone pours out.

Let us go then, you and I

through the goldblood hours

where no one teaches you how to bleed pretty—

not in the swanpale wrist pressed

to cold porcelain tile way

half-lit in someone else’s forgetting.

You learn it knees to marble

cheek to linoleum

in radio silence buzzing through your teeth

playing love songs that didn’t learn the language.

He liked it leaning in disrepair

so I sucked the ghostsweet butterscotch slow.

I let it split goldenglass hard and sharp

the bloom red blooming—

behind teeth

a salty flood.

It cut me—

but I didn’t spit it out.

I kept it

I kept it all.

More from Amy Laessle-Morgan ↓

• @ultramarine_poetry on Instagram
• Her book, Live Wire, is available now.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry sustains. Thank you for supporting the podcast.