been in the birthing process for months with this one. i'm not sure if she's done. could be premature... still too early to tell. but putting these little babies out in to the world, for however scary it is, seems to do them - and me - a bit of good. i am still learning. i've got a long way to go. critique is always welcome. an afternoon of re-arranging is emminent.
renewing
she crouches at the reddening
hinge of mama's hope chest, shoving
out the unwanted: hated
sunday dresses.
disdain at the ruffle-
my other.
that girl.
that daughter. that
black.
she points and i reach.
skirts she'll not finger
silks she'll not admire-
i only ever wanted to be pleasing.
lace
ripped and reeling
i clean
down to the white
beyond bone and passed
the collected fat, i shove
myself
tight inside
the Goodwill bag.
she points and i pull
a new braid hiding
this girl.
this non-daughter.
and blackless.
possibly
bitch of no father.
-angela simione, 2009
2 comments:
I love the idea of this poem. I also like that it's rather stark for a spring cleaning poem---that really works for me.
One question--I wondered if the line "lace/ripped and reeling" continues to the next stanza with "i clean". I wasn't sure how to read these couple of lines, since there was no punctuation between them.
Thanks for sharing this!
hi storialist! i was hoping for your insight. :)
i actually have no clue. ha! i'm still trying to figure out how to deal with poem punctuation. i keep bouncing back and forth between wanting to put periods and commas all over the place or just scrapping punctuation entirely and letting line breaks do all the work.
it does read a bit strangely at that point in the poem. i'll see what i can do. maybe it just needs to be beefed up a little right there... make a smoother transition to the next stanza. hmmm. i'll keep playing. thank you so much!
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