In addition to mailing Christmas boxes and picking up my son at the bus station, I'll be copyediting Teresa Carson's forthcoming collection My Crooked House, which CavanKerry is releasing this spring. I'm pretty happy to think that we both have books coming out this spring, and I'm pretty happy to be reading these poems, which manage to be both elegantly constructed and brutal, not to mention dramatically precise. As in:
Me and Mom, 1961
Teresa Carson
It’s her room, Yes,
my room,
not mine. not
yours.
Her girly-pink walls, her jumble of junk, The
only space that’s mine, all mine.
her dirty sheers. Don’t
tell a soul.
There’s no drawer My
bureau,
for me. not
yours.
I dig through a clump of underpants Why
bother separating ours?
to find a pair of mine. Stop
wanting more.
My uniform’s thrown on the chair, This
closet, those hangers, mine,
topped by her girdle and slip. not
yours.
The lit Virgin Mary centered on sill.
Blessed
art thou . . .
Polish can’t save my saddle shoes. Don’t
press your luck.
Every night, when she goes to bed, I’m
tired,
I must go, too. you
must be, too.
Even if I’m reading (Yawn.)
or playing tic-tac-toe or . . . Stop
what you’re doing.
My mother’s fat, My
comfort matters most,
good thing I’m small. not
yours.
Just one wool army blanket (Lifts
arm in invitation.)
to cover two. No pillows. Don’t
think you’re better than me.
I press between her arm and breast. This
is the way it always was.
What’s that noise? And that? This
is the way it always should be.
I inhabit nightmares. Always
will be.
Her unwashed female stink takes over me. Stop
making up tall tales.
I can’t breathe. Mine,
No room to move. not
yours.
Where else could I go? Yes.
Who else would hold me? Mine
alone.
Don’t want to. Everybody
knows
It’s all I’ve ever known. you’re
mine.[The righthand column is supposed to be flush-left all the way down, but stupid Blogger loves to mess with poetry formatting and I can't seem to fix it. You'll have to wait till spring to see this poem in its true glory.]
2 comments:
Wow. Looks like an incredible collection.
It is, Maureen. Teresa is both a poet and a playwright, so she is particularly attuned to both individual voices and dramatic control. I am amazed.
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