For E.E. Cummings and Adrienne Rich

I found these gems lying dormant in a crowded folder marked "Poetry," as every folder should be. I wrote them in an attempt to catch up from April 5 to April 11 just before giving up to charge head first at the two book manuscripts I'm working on--you know, because if you can't pick your pony, you'd better just ride them both at once and hope for the best. This is the bumper sticker that brands and advertises my universe. 

So, here they are. Enjoy. 

E.E. Cummings

April 5: E.E. Cummings

A Writerly Mama’s Wish

for my children’s honorary literary godfather E.E. Cummings

When my children’s lives

stop like clocks ticked out from the time

they marked with their small hands.

I will hold these hopes in mine—

that they trade in toys for words,

playing for keeps with sentences

lined up like army men on laundry baskets,

that they mark new time with stanzas

syntax set for high tea with Easter hat hyperbole,

fine lace beneath each cup to counter the cacophonic world.

As they pick up desk phones,

let them feel tin cans in their fingers,

the vibration on the string.

Let them see staff paper in place

of watermarks on legal papers,

suspect invisible ink between the lines.

Let them hold everything

up to the light.

Adrienne Rich

April 6: Adrienne Rich

Speech Class

for Adrienne Rich

Behind her polite voice,

marking territory

like a thigh-high

chainlink fence

I heard barbs surface belly up,

spun into spiral metal at the top,

occasional razors around each bend,

each word

the perfect marriage:

an honest promise,

a clear threat.