In semblance of brittleness it stands still unbowed, dry reedy rod rising to burry crown revealing nothing even to breezes that demand it speak forth its cadence of parched crackles
still it stands confronting crisp winter staring in its bleak eye the season bent on bringing down lesser, larger limbs unfit to bear the strain of snow
still rigid unhostile in plain acceptance— this is being this is nothing more than being— its implied dare reach, seize, snap hints at the plunderer’s fate the bloodied hands forced open in the attack
Author’s Note: The poem emerged out of a workshop sponsored by the Poetry Foundation and Chicago’s Lurie Garden. We were studying how the garden changed over the course of the year, and I was taken in by the plant know as the rattlesnake master.… ...continue reading
I mean you encase my head in your marble, wishing you could uncarve me back into you. I don’t get the same maydays the birds do. By the time the canary is up, you are the cracking of eggshell against the dome of our asphyxiating house. You become your name. A burning tar-colored voice fills my eyes, my ears. Your aneurysm. My altar, barely courage-high, wedges itself between you and your striking. I tell her to run. I always tell her to run.
Vanessa Jackson slipped gracefully out of her clothes and frolicked across the sand. Her lithe body and flowing blonde hair fed my long-held fantasies. She splashed into the shallow surf, and when the water reached her waist, she plunged beneath the waves. After a few seconds her head bobbed up.
“Cut,” yelled Morgan Breedlove. He gestured in my direction, and I snatched up a towel and robe and ran to meet Ms. Jackson as she emerged from the sea. I held up the robe for privacy while she dried herself.
She rewarded me with a smile. “Thank you, Angie.” She slid one arm and then the other into the robe, knotted the sash, and linked her arm in mine as we trudged back to the camera set-up. … ...continue reading
To the watching world she was the epitome of poise and grace. Every little girl in the land wanted to be her at that very moment. Those watching from home gasped at the veritable forest of wildflowers – wrangled and tamed into a brilliant bouquet – which had been placed between her delicate hands. Those there in person inwardly fumed – frustrated that they could not catch a glimpse of her legendary beauty for themselves, for it remained shrouded behind a veil of almost spectral fabric – hidden from those who were not to be her husband… Yet, if they had but peered beneath that mask of dancing mist, they would have been shocked to see two even streams of tears flowing freely down her face.… ...continue reading
Dear Suki, Carmel, April 23rd, 68′, I visited you in California when I missed us from that postcard to no where here. It began that way, noon lent itself into the footsteps of two thousand miles set there by waters, I crunched of gravel with long shot to the sea in your embrace so tight. Dearest girl, I hoped to say what I want when the road turned to sand, when I liked things simple from all the ways you had done and scented back, surfacing me. Decades still would find me there, in the quiet of your mint vexing mouth, giving for what we have been without missing us gently through handshakes and apologies, making relief of our ghosts.
Just pinged, I cruise up to a popular corner of Bourbon Street in the early morning hours of a jam-packed fall Saturday night. Though it’s approaching three AM, Bourbon Street is still utterly slammed with people, ten abreast across the asphalt, blocked to car traffic save for the intersections. Police cruisers are camped at every corner, mostly as a show of force. When I pull up, my riders, two young women, are chatting flirtatiously with this crossing’s appointed cops.
I confirm the name of the young woman who called the Uber and she and her friend pile in, laughing and waving goodbye to the police, eyelids aflutter. One of the officers sports a rueful grin, then shakes his head slowly, returning his eyes to the clattering madness of inebriated revelers I’m about to weave through.… ...continue reading
It was the esteemed poet and essayist Adrienne Rich who once said, “When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.” We owe so much of our collective progress to individuals who offer us the truth, and in so doing, render their small corner of the world more genuine, authentic, and real. In her debut collection, Mother Tongue Apologize, Preeti Vangani wrangles the inner power to confront the loss of her mother, examine the construct of idealized femininity, and lift the veil that once hid centuries of unconscionable violence against women. In her words, she resides in truth and makes it possible for the world around her to follow suit.
Vangani’s
writing is not only transparent but also relatable.… ...continue reading
