Four Poems
by Betsy Childs
Contents
Monday Night
Well, Nora made this chili
and I ate it, because she’s
awful insecure about her
cooking, but it wasn’t
worth eating, except to
spare her feelings, but
her brother Bob says
don’t encourage her
because why make the
rest of us suffer?
I washed the bowls and
scraped the burnt chili
pot and Nora teared up
and said I’d probably die
of heartburn before I
turned forty-five and we turned
on the news and the weather
girl told us in a cheery way
to look for rain until
Wednesday. Nora said
by the way how long did
we have to wait to start a
family and I said what did
that have to do with rain?
She said it had to do with
everything while her clock
was ticking so I said it had to
do with my dead-end job and
flipped to this game show
and answered every question
right but the dope on the
show lost. And Nora looked
out the window and said
Lord, here comes Jesus
and she was right.
In Medias Res
I missed the beginning of the story,
born too late
to watch the light come on
and the characters climb out of the dust.
Besides that, both scholars
and carpenters
agree
we’re an end-determined fiction,
senseless without the last chapter.
When we finish the story
we’ll have to read it again
to see the shape of it.
Only a few star-eyed seers admit
they have flipped to the end
to settle their minds,
and I’d rather listen to them
than not know.
But one thing about this great, collapsing allegory
offends my literary sensibility:
at times I actually see the face of God,
the great author intruding.
Temptation
to be the great,
wide, mother of the world,
of you beautiful brown ballerinas
draping your grace-glazed awkward arms
around the brown, upright piano. You pasty, pink,
wet-cheeked, whimpering babies in cribs watching shadows
set on the wall– call to me, need me, miss me. How can I glory
in you unless I possess you and birth you, you scruffy-faced, unedited
men with your innocent question? You armies who clear your throats
in a stare-down with death, I invite you to gather your courage from me.
(You simple and brilliant who weep over birthdays and laugh
over birthday suits). All of your differences whisper,
“Only increase and we will make you
mother of all these,”
the First Lie of
the world.
Procession
On this day, by suspending our
Usual traffic flow, we will make
An apology for the blue sky.
The planets have not yielded
To your grief by altering their
Course to some eclipsing
Pathetic fallacy, but we will pause
And wait for the beaded chain
Of mourners and associates,
Winding their way to Gilead.
On this day, you have permission
To ignore the order we have made
With lights and whistles and words,
And we will not blame you,
For tomorrow, all will be
As it was.
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