Mood: Pleased
Drinking: Diet DP
I don’t fall in love with other poets very often. My list of favorites is a very short one.
But Kristy Bowen has made it into the top 5.
I read her Ghost Road Press book, The Fever Almanac, a few months ago, and I dragged the reading of it out, on and on, just snippets a day, to make it last longer.
I’m doing the same thing now with Feign, and I have to share it with you, because this poem just makes me happy.
And this week we could all use a little happiness, no? Black predictions on the left and on the right, sky falling in and Wall Street crumbling and whatnot.
I could use a little extra beauty mixed in with all the truth. A heavy-handed dose of sugar and paper wings.
So here we have some beautiful Bowen. It just might do the trick:
HOW TO READ THIS POEM
I suggest a system. A lifeboat. Or at the very least a bathtub.
I suggest you sit down.
I suggest the bird at your shoulder be ruby-throated with a milky eye.
That it say inappropriate things at inappropriate times.
I suggest bringing something ruined. Or broken. Or drunk.
I suggest you take the south road. Slip beneath the piano and
out the trap door. Sneak up on it from behind.
I suggest you take a snack. An umbrella. A dictionary.
I suggest you start slowly.
I suggest you read the red skirt as a metaphor for sex. The fistful of poppies
languishing in their vase.
I suggest everything is a metaphor for sex. Even the bird.
I suggest you mind the foil, toiling in the background. It’s all very
Shakespearean. Even her red hair, Shakespearean.
I suggest you take the setting into consideration. Or here, where the
narrative slips off its track.
I suggest you look askance when the woman opens her arms and lowers
them.
I suggest you be kind. But distracted.
-Lo, in need of many, many more lovely things.
LaDonnaWitmer 