Hello all! It’s been a while again, I know. I’ve been missing writing in the worse way but otherwise wrapped up in my new job, writing a new bio: McKenzie lives and writes in South Bend, where she works at Indiana University, etc. It’s been a blast, but I’ve only been writing what I call “snippet poems” lately: small snapshots, quick thoughts, that I can get down on the page and keep going. I miss meandering through a longer poem, perfecting an image, an ending, the title, working on my full-length. Below, you’ll find three new snippet poems, from a selection of poems I’ve been working on about nighttime and the truths of home, as well as my very first “spam poem,” invented from, you guessed it, creating erasures out of spam messages—mostly from the ones that pollute my website space (but goodness, they’re fun). I hope you enjoy these, and I promise to post more often—and get back into the reviewing rhythm—very soon.
Also, P.S. You know how sometimes a song gets stuck in your head? Yep, it’s “Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty.” Now in poem-form. Help me.
Until Later, Best ~ from me.
RITUAL
Come night, every night
is the same : I close the shades, tuck
the bed sheets tight at the head
against our night noises, loose
at the foot so he may slip
from the covers : foot bare
in the afterglow.
SLEEPLESS
Dear child, close your eyes—
my heart, my limbs
are tired. Your tears wake us
in our separate cities & at times,
yes : I get lost in the haze.
In you, my fog. Go to sleep.
My love, my rest, I promise:
all will be better with the light.
THE GIRL YOU NAMED ME FOR
dies in a fire in a movie
from the ’80s. Hardly enough
to search & discover the movie’s title
but there it is : my sake. Her hair color,
her age, I do not know, but this
is how I imagine the story ends : black smoke
or at least the froth of it, cries choked out
on what I imagine black sky : fires never rise
in the middle of the day, unable to compete
with the sun. I ask you again the name
of the film & again, you falter, say it was
a good one, strange, its focus
on family : my name spelled to reflect
the one Irish branch of our family tree, that which
I have fostered long after you left
for more Grecian- & Sioux-like skin, how strange :
this focus on family roots.
SPAM #1
now I am completely full
of honey—sometimes
I drink beer
in public. others cannot
do this: fireflies. what light.
what nonsense.