Friday, October 13, 2006

Massachusetts

Governor Mitt Romney will be so pleased to have you as Poet. You can do it!

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:33 AM

    Open Casket

    A funeral summons me an ocean away:
    My grandmother's face, complacent,
    a foreign sight to my stranger's eyes.
    Heavy incense drowning me in sweetness,
    perfume of my past.
    I remember sitting in my grandmother's lap
    her stories of tricky rabbits
    who outsmarted wolves,
    filial children who walked barefoot
    through blizzards
    to find turnips for their hungry parents.
    My grandmother's voice was raspy,
    fuzzy sandpaper
    surprisingly soothing
    with the soft cadence of her island dialect.
    I remember
    celebrating birthdays
    with cakes as big and round as a harvest moon,
    the frosting clinging to my nose,
    my grandmother beaming
    and the light from the candles bouncing
    off the fillings of her teeth.
    I remember
    my grandma visiting us in America,
    the lines of her face weathered,
    her voice hoarse,
    her sentences broken,
    the melody interrupted by a stroke.
    She disrupted my life.
    Her solid shadow could darken a room.
    That smell of tiger balm and
    mothballs she carried.
    She sat in a dark room, alone,
    eyes fixed on the television screen.
    Out of wet eye corners,
    she watched my brother and I talk,
    so quiet we forgot she was there.
    She loved sitting in our yard
    as the day slipped into dusk:
    the birds warbling,
    her toes digging in the grass,
    the blades tickling feet,
    a hiccup of laughter
    from the small woman in the lawn chair.
    I remember
    watching her figure
    grow dim in the fading light,
    catching her eye and seeing her shiny teeth,
    Knowing her smile would linger
    as everything else grew dark.

    Eva Ting
    everting@yahoo.com
    (originally published in "clarion," literary magazine at BU)

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  2. Anonymous9:40 PM

    MY MOTHER

    was a boomerang
    with a serrated edge
    a hand in the dark
    a black widow in my bed
    her voice her hair her mouth her eyes
    a double-sided mirror,
    one true, one lies
    my mother the vampire
    married to the Count of Pain
    frying eggs with my soft easy head
    scrubbing floors
    rubbing me clean
    erasing evidence
    replacing my clothes
    brushing my curls
    saving me in tupperware

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  3. Anonymous7:56 PM

    Song for the Little Bug

    Little bug, little bug,
    what can you ask of me?
    I can’t save you and the little ant, too,
    and sit where I happen to be.

    I never meant to get so big,
    nor you, I’m sure, so small;
    and we can’t decide if we swim or glide,
    or pace, or fret, or crawl.

    But you’ll land on my arm, and I’ll land on your grass,
    having wings (as we do) and feet,
    and there’s nothing to do but to do what we do,
    and tip hats when we meet.

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