Last Day of Poetry Marathon
today is the last day of poetry marathon, as it is the close of April. Sad to see it go, but happy to say I have completed the challenge. I did not post the last few days of poetry on tumblr because they weren't fairy tale related (my inspiration made me do other things, picture a muse forcing my hand). In part, because I am finishing my final poetry portfolio for Major Jackson's poetry workshop, and he asked me to put "the Arli" in my work. So, I decided to put them up here anyway, because the poetry challenge is over, anyway, and when else would I ever post them? I hope you enjoy.
This poem is about the breast surgery I had last year, due to two (benign) golf-ball sized tumors.
in the dim darkened room,
to slip under spaghetti strap,
hard like a chipped tooth,
rising just beside the pink
hardens me, and I am relieved
to find something as ugly,
and as meager, and as hard
I also did a series poem, called, "The Art of Being A Girl," about my mother and I. Here is the first poem:
The speckles dancing in air are basement fairies
drifting in our apartment on Elm
dazzling and dancing on tipped toes
in a halo, surrounding my mother
who is kneeling at the coffee table
needling her hands pin-cushion raw.
Get that rat off your head,mother says,
with her back hunched like a crone kneading dough.
Go and watch your mermaid,she says,
she'll teach you how to grow legs.
Here is the second in the series, a villainelle about the time one of my aunts attempted suicide.
The phone rings and a withering begins,
in my mother, breaking and bending her like the wing of a swallow.
Framed in a halo of dust, she says,Women are only skins
to be shed. In the kitchen, she and Eliane bend and bow like twins
in grief, cryingma petite soeur, ma petite soeur,uniting in a song of wallow.
The phone rings and a withering begins
in her skin, shedding and shredding her, replacing legs with fins
and as a mermaid she wriggles and writhes in her hollow,
framed in a halo of dust, she says,Women are only skins,
and she trades hers for scales like pearls. Legless, she spins
her fins on the kitchen tile, a jittery nightmare keening low,
the phone rings. And a withering begins
to swim in her belly, and she cries sharp as a shell and jagged as tins
rusted and rife. As if she had no breasts, as if she were hallow,
framed in a halo of dust, she says,Women are only skins
to peel.She talks about sleeping beauty and airfare and sins
of the pill and the knife, tells meSe baigner dans l'eau.
The phone rings and a withering begins,
framed in a halo of dust, she says,Women are only skins.
And so ends National Poetry Month.
Still working on getting the journal up to speed, writing up mission statements, refined submission guidelines, etc etc. So I will keep you updated on the progress.