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She Who Is Mother
wears the sun in her hair
has a necklace of dandelions
woven in braids. She Who Is
Mother knits sweaters in yarn
colored orange russet gold,
keeps her children warm
when stars fall as frost.
She Who Is Mother has a box
of pastel chalks, colors in
the new leaves, scribbles the world
green and gold, pink and white.
She Who Is Mother has a lap
deep as a soup kettle, ladles out
noodles, carrots, broth. She
Who Is Mother has arms
that can bend, fingers that can
mend a tear in a shirt, or wipe tears
from a dirt-streaked cheek.
She cradles the earth in her hands.
From the collection:
Rainy Day Women,
by Barbara Crooker.
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Moths
There
are those nights when I am quite sure that
I have swallowed something warm and living.
there are thousands of thin, dry wings beating in me
Like an army of big, exhausted brown moths
Not butterflies, mind you, but moths
Deep dusky moths with eyes on their wings
shimmering with the exhausting closeness of death
thrashing uselessly against my insides.
And
on these nights, it is exceptionally hot outside
My skin is damp with the heat of all these flapping wings.
It
is on these nights I most fear that
I will burst into pure blue fire if you touch me.
Hints of flight rush from my parted lips when I speak
And my whole being aches and trembles to rise into the air.
From the Collection:
The Little Things,
by Danielle Boodoo-Fortune'
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Forbidden Fruit
The hibiscus
is back
inside where it’s
Grow light sunny
Bigger than ever
our K-Mart folly
could be remembering
the ruby-throated hummingbird
sipping nectar
from a scarlet flower
and the monarch resting
in her green bower
Or the particular day
in late September
an equinoctial storm
blew in and a traveler
sheltering on the porch
from the cold rain
spotted her
Probing the glass
with a delicate beak
up and down
the invisible barrier
longing for her
sweet ruby throat
From the collection:
Red Suddenly,
by Christina Pacosz
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Argument
Her
story ripples. The sea tells
it.
Gulls talk of Persephone
as
they fly inland. Terns answer.
Tall
reeds, called the bulrush, are filled
with
such tales. Where she plunged under,
moist
earth froze. Wailing Demeter,
her
cold mother, is left circling
a
hot globe. A meaningless sun
and
all far stars, she will ignore.
A
labyrinth's worth of byways are
locked in that name: Persephone.
From the collection:
Talking
Wood, by Marjorie Deiter Keyishian
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Note to Self
Remember the peasant dress
with the pattern of small blue flowers
you loved when you were nine,
its ankle length skirt, puffed bodice,
elastic in the capped sleeves
that hugged your upper arms.
Sometimes Dan wraps his long
fingers at that same place
just below your shoulder.
Sometimes he whispers
into your middle-aged ear
words meant directly for that girl.
What can you know of the future?
There’ll be shifts and losses
you’ll contend with when you have to.
Put on something that makes you feel pretty.
Hold that man while he’s yours.
From the collection:
Meanwhile, by Ona
Gritz
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noodles that look like ties, or family on white bread
tan buildings always remind me of home.
so do popcorn ceilings.
so do wood-paneled trailer walls.
(but, then again, that last one's pretty
literal.)
and i remember when i told my mother
i wanted my spaghetti
on bread.
like a sandwich, i said.
she laughed at me,
but i know that
deep down
she imagined the taste in her own mouth.
i ate that miracle food
one piece at a time.
From the collection:
Southern Woman at
School by Tiffany Ball
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Listening (To)
for Ravi Shankar
because I am a woman
trained to crunch my abs until
all those ugly jiggly parts
tear off my side( pour out my mouth
in porcelain privacy )
raised to scrape my skin with blades
& expensive
lotion
in case someone wants to touch
to floralize my skin—lavender, rose absolute
if anyone comes close enough to scent me
told I should already
know
that shams stay on pillows only by day
keeping dust away from layers
will accommodate stubble by night
drilled in cleaning, cooking fractions
no grades but table praise
because of more than this
when a man
(who happens this time to be you,
forgive me
)
claims he can hear the Sound Puget Sound
I leapt & swam through shivering summers
gray reflecting marble sky
from a market it wouldn't be (mere) cliché
to say I traipsed a thousand times
I go to those bricks at seven
(earliest bus will arrive
forgive me—I don't drive)
stand&step&stand&step
listening
convincing
myself I hear tide hissing
along sand, along itself
only to find it's a car
thinking
wake & storm waves throw
metal & drift
wood into piers
only to find a seller unloading
has dropped a crate of animals
molded from St. Helens ash
unable
even to pretend
coins in Starbucks siren cup
held by a woman whose face is covered
with a green fleece blanket
are waves crashing into each other
I begin to make excuses for that man
(who
happens to be you)
Sounds meant foghorns
(you didn't say)
or gulls
(who fly & cry across Lake Washington anyway
I even begin to ask the farmers
white & Hmong, ask everyone in town (if I weren't so
shy
but ask my coworkers at least
& when I find that I am right believe
nobody will read this
for you (a man)
have dismissed everything I write
as holding nothing
You can remember (man)
From the collection:
Unforming,
by Elizabeth Kate Switaj
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Love Letter
Sweetness: the raspberry weighted under
wet leaf,
such green you call it flooding-taste or bandage.
Here, morning: a field of sunflower, a cobbled
road, I conjure you.
What falls from me, what is recovered—small
talisman, synecdoche of
what might make up a bright country.
I pick raspberries from behind the hotel
and think
of you—
on another continent by which I mean apart
from me.
Important: the berries are not sweet.
They taste of salt, a bloodied lip, crook
of
an elbow,
and here, under my shirt, I grow
chill with dew.
From the collection:
Broken English,
by Sheila Black
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