request for anne carson poem + one rachel eliza griffiths poem.

[two-grey-rooms.livejournal.com]

would anyone who is subscribed to the new yorker be so kind as to copy and paste the new anne carson poem for me, pretty please?

and, of course, a poem for your trouble:

"Blues for Sweet Thing"
Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Whose little girl am I?
Anyone who has money to buy.
What do they call me?
--Nina Simone, "Four Women"

I'm honeysuckle.
A girl child crying
holy seven sins.

A harp & loom.
A rack of ribs.
A ribcage.

A pocket of coins
never to be spent
because my country

no longer exists. Almanac,
without page numbers

or prophecy.
For you I was sycamore,

pear, willow,
maple & bougainvillea.

For you
I was bathwater.

Gazelle, artichoke,
tulip & daffodil.

Your father's tears.

Blue fern of smoke
from a cigarette

opened by a fist
of summer rain.

For you
I was a red dress.

Teeth that glowed
under the hot bulb
of a basement party.

I was a sacrificial smile burning off
lamb's fat after midnight.

Ace & diamond.

The good time
no clock could find.

White sheet. A pearl drop earring.
Shadow wearing her mother's hat.

Birdcage. A bird who sat inside
your ears like a wound

until clarity sounded
its back-break trumpet.

A woman gone to church
with no stockings.

A woman gone to love
wearing no lingerie.

No skin either.

Your memories pulled apart
by a boll weevil's testimony.

For you
I was all these things.

I ended up
being

honeysuckle threading
a ghetto fence.

Dandelion crushed
between a cement wall.

The rapper's accessory.
A bank's vault.

I know more
about the sadness in paper

than the hands that
crush paper into clouds.

            Ghost
of magnolia.

How did I end up
being a ghost of every
nothing?

I was a sweet thing
until the moon was sobbing

along the stairwell tower
of some woman's throat.

Comments

[yarrowkat]

you're welcome!