This chapbook was selected for publication by Main Street Rag after finishing as a runner up in the 2002 Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest. Poems from this collection have also appeared in the following publications: Nimrod, Southern Humanities Review, The Kerf, Sundog, Spoon River Poetry Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Lullwater Review, Crab Orchard Review, Atlanta Review, Mudfish, River Styx, The Comstock Review, Poems and Plays, Clackamas Literary Review.
Annunciation
after Fra Angelico
Sometimes an angel enters the garden.
He hesitates at the doorway, as though
his shoes were muddy, or perhaps
he has news that will distress us,
that will change the way we live our lives,
that will alter the course of the world forever.
The angel gestures, as though he wants to say
he’s sorry for intruding. Sorry how
news comes to us in strange ways.
Perhaps he is lost, or meant to visit someone else,
someone who is not so afraid.
I believe he will speak to me now, say words
in a language I won’t understand. But suddenly
he freezes and I feel something like light entering me.
The angel’s wings must quiver as he watches
how terrifying news enters the bloodstream
in its course through this all too human body.
Ennis Hill Road
Here is my lifeline: the place
I jumped a snow bank when
my neighbor’s daughter’s boyfriend’s car
slid on black ice and I landed
in a small ravine. The car
came to rest on my footprints.Here is my love line: the place
we walked to the day we broke up.
We stopped at the dip in the road to argue
and moved in together instead.We walk this road at bedtime,
discussing constellations, getting
the stars mixed-up: Deneb, Spica,
Arcturus, Capella. We gasp
as things fall out of the sky, leaving
sparks in their place for a while.This is the road we know is home,
the road we navigate each day.
Our bodies hold its ups and downs.
Its curves know how to ride us.
We’ve learned its tricks and turns by heart,
its blind spots, wash-outs, straightaways.
We love the way it dances the ridge,
drops into the valley, singing.
Total Dioxin Barbie
Total Hair Barbie is tired
of paying taxes for military buildup.
Sparkle-ized Barbie is pale.
She hates bovine growth hormones
in her strawberry milkshake.
Aerobic Barbie is flat on her back.
She is sick of supporting
multinational industry.
Even Hawaiian Fun Barbie is laying low.
The Barbies have just heard the news:
PVC plastic contains dioxin.
They have a body burden,
and Ken may be shooting blanks.They are calling a doctor to cure them.
“Dr. Seuss,” they are telling the doctor.
“Come help us. We threw up in our beds.”
Dr. Seuss tells them to take off
their diamond stud earrings
and their silver strapless sheaths,
to remove their pink plastic bracelets,
and their honeymoon outfits.
He thinks they should
grow out their wavy platinum hair
and throw out their see-through white lace tights.
He advises them to run naked in the hayfields.
To gather wild raspberries and feast on them.
To drink dew from a daylily’s cup.The Barbies are feeling better now.
They are going native.
They are wearing grass skirts
and tiny halters of pink, chartreuse and yellow.
Radicalized Barbie has taken matters into her own plastic hands.
She is giving news conferences
and briefing the media.The Barbies are telling Monsanto
they can’t manufacture the environment.
They have declared war
on the whole petrochemical industry.
Eco-terrorist Barbie is lobbing grenades
at the Chlorine Chemistry Council.
The Barbies are jumping from airplanes,
but they can’t escape what they’re made of.
Their silicone breasts explode on impact,
defoliating the suburbs.