From the Iowa ReviewCantilevered Bedtime Story Wallpaper farm, the girl with the duck, the friendly farmer's father-work, the moony mother's queer stare and the bee-hivey haystacks, the pitchforks, the curly cows by the pond. Elsewhere a window frames green light. Elsewhere, the dark-hall-doorway, the long walk to the kitchen's grown-up talking. The Singer in the corner, electric and shiny and under the bed, and under the bed... O happy wallpaper girl, the cow wants to give you her milk. The father's pitchfork is strong and serene, but what can be done for the woman in the fluttering apron who gaze is seaward, and elsewhere, and gone? Iowa Review April 2008 copyright, Deborah Bogen |
Poems You May Not Have Read YetJANUARY POEM FOR MY FATHER Think of a snowfall before the first child wakes, before sled runners slice the hill and the boots of hunters do their work. We've climbed to the top of another year -- even the Quick-Stop sparkles in this light. This year I'll clean the closet, lose ten pounds, write a letter. Maybe I'll call my father's friend, the one who saved his life in Okinawa on a road that in the photo snakes off into dark. In the picture, Dad and his pals lean on their tank relaxed as boys on a playground, mouths smoke-stained, hands beer-bottled, rifles stacked and set aside like hay. The beer's good and they grin into the camera thinking they can see what's coming. Thinking they can see what's coming next. this is from "Living Next to the Children's Cemetery." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ six at the beginning means: when ribbon grass is pulled up the sod comes with it. I Ching You know this one, He’s old. And rich. He can do what he wants. It would even be boring but there’s threat to the soil. She has the naked glance of fourteen, hair tucked beneath her cap and he wants to take that, the lustrous unveiling. It’s hard to be without the cash to crush a fat old man, hard to face it, as you julienne the carrots in his wife’s kitchen. She stands with a knife in her hands as he comes downstairs. The curls fall like ribbons, filling the hollow at her neck. And though we want to say at the end that she recovers wholly, it isn’t true. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
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