MiPOesias Magazine

1543-6063



	EXUBERANT POEM for Matt Hart Indeed I rush to open the six windows, to watch the neighbor's turkey confuse itself with shadow and lawn jockey. What gorgeous singers at this hour: warbler, jay, the bent squeaky tricycle wheel. All day I am picket fence, sidewalk, snow cones, mail truck. All day the light comes in further, gathers in the hedgerow, box bushes, brightening the sink stopper, tile, my face, this jubilance of the dishwasher springing its tenth leak, the beautiful near- disaster of warped linoleum, pockets of suds, air, specks of last night's pork, wine, the little grains of rice, all of it, perfect, catching the cracks, the late light just so, that when I open my hands the suds fill the sky, my hair with whiteness and I am altogether wild, I am unbelievably exuberant, thin blank paper woman holding as much of the world that will fit into the fibers, follicles, the impossible folder of her mouth. GOSPEL OF THE ORGAN DONOR for Nathan I did not want to stay as I was: bone shattered, snapped spine, skin stung from glass, gravel. I wanted to speak to my body —rise up— to hear just once more my own voice out loud, to see my mother lay down her prayers, for the nurse to release the Mylar balloons, for each one to drift toward the ceiling, florescents, windows, the pale door of death. Just by closing my eyes forever, it all came back to me—my body as I'd never see it again, blips and screams, needles, my never-waking brain, lung, collarbone. How I'd miss coffee, Mistletoe, the first frost of the year, eighteen, sex, stereos, cookies. I stared into the after- math of my body (left finger, larynx, liver) asking for this death to shape me, and I was shaped of air, soul, exhaustion, the morning jay, tinsel, breath, new bodies that refused to let go. LATE CONFESSION a cento At the start, something must be arbitrarily excluded. There is the mourning dish of salt outside The hours between washing & the well The apparently sudden appearance of— I try to hold my lie in mind. I give you the unhinged sleeve I am dreaming a hole right into the voice of God. Dear Lord, fire-eating custodian of my soul, There is a loneliness that fills the plain. Raw, ingrown, unrest. Our messages go through zeroes and ones, —Remember the darkness November like a train wreck— I woke up and found you above me— Your mouth and mine, a hagioscope It is not you who keeps me I, too, must make diverse pilgrimages. (Sources: "As We're Told" by Rae Armantrout / "The One Thousand Days" by Lucie Brock-Broido / "Soul Keeping Company" by Lucie Brock-Broido / "Exit Wound" by Jorie Graham / "In/Silence" by Jorie Graham / "If So, Tell Me" by Barbara Guest / "What Is Not Science Is Art Is Nature" by Rachel Zucker / "Prayer for Jackson" by Amy Gerstler / "The Fall of Rome: A Traveller's Guide: LIV" by Anne Carson / "Homesickness" by Christina Davis / "Circuitry" by Christina Davis / "March Dawn" by Brenda Hillman / "Reasons to Survive November" by Tony Hoagland / "Husband and Wife" by Edward Hirsch / "How Young, How Bad" by Jillian Weise / "Erase" by Jilliam Weise / "Lafcadio Hearn" by Edward Hirsch) GOSPEL OF THE UNPLANNED CHILD You wore your Baby Soft and blue dress. You were in your car and smoking. I was the accident month. I was your ill-fitting jacket. I was your craving for sugar and salt. You sent me your half-bottle of vodka. I was drunk and swerving. You hid in your closet. You hid me in your gray sweatshirt. I watched my cells double and stick. You said I want my body back. I said your body is my body. You said I'll kill you with the stairs. You said I'll kill you I'll kill you. I said I'm still here. You said please don't tell— I told with my soccer kick. I told with my umbilical tug.

	Amanda Auchter is the editor of Pebble Lake Review and the author of the chapbook, Light Under Skin. A finalist for the 2007 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, her awards include the 2007 Theodore Morrison Poetry Scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the 2006 BOMB Magazine Poetry Prize, and the 2005 James Wright Poetry Award from Mid-American Review. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Best New Poets 2007, Court Green, Crab Orchard Review, The Iowa Review, Perihelion, Poetry Daily, and others. She currently teaches in the Writers In The Schools Program in Houston.

MIPOesias Magazine
A Menendez Publication
Bloomington, IL

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