float

We would burn our trash in heavy wired baskets

in alleys now filled with floatsam.

When the Kotex' burned

we would call the moon-calf god of Esdras,

he who rules over women who didn't conceive.

He who hovers

as obeisance and sacrifice. Later that

year I would find a vibrator

in my sisters drawer thinking it

a Sherman tank for my little green men

who, in their medieval philosophy, fought

wars against judgment and prejudice. In

my artifact of being 7, I didn't like

her boyfriends a*s anyway. Yet

each time I was scolded from being in her

room, before I finally caught on.

That loneliness is the poetry

that grows out of imagism;

that puts all the variables of stress

on form.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i remember the imagination i had at 7 years old....and sneaking into my sister's room---
never found any tanks though---

just that scent of perfume i wondered about---but i was too young to really judge...

i just wanted to look out my five story apartment window...and imagine... i hadn't met those syllables yet.

and i also remember in my early years....there was a judgment about not only those who did not conceive, but the spinsters who never married..the old maids, they were called.

i think i want back up on that fifth floor...the perspective was kinder then.

again such thoughtful poetry here.

[Delmar Cooper]

I've read this several times and I don't think I can say it any better than Kortas, Yes the connections are the fabric and texture of the robe that is this poem.

[W.k.kortas]

It's all about connections, about the quality of fiber holding things together. Any one of these images--the burning Kotex, the vibrator, the small army men--are nothing out of the ordinary on their own, but woven together like this? Ah.