Theories of Whiteness, #734
A photo surfaces waterboarding torture in 1968 A young soldier smirks Something horrible has happened to his mouth
Court martial will take that smirk away It will reappear years later on the Vice President’s face
Praise Song for Adrienne Rich
Praise a thinking woman parachuting into the field of danger
Praise the tongue that refuses to serve, hands that will not soothe singular and plural voices
The undoing of permissible fibs
The female he and the male she Twins diving into wreckage
Praise the cat drinking from a bowl of marigolds The woman who knows her own power
Voice in the desert teacher in a war zone Language that won’t collude
The heart with its many blossoms
Lives ticking on, as if
Listen Kids
I too read Nietzsche in the church pews. I perfected the art of sulk. I ironed the joy from my hair.
My closest friend was a reptile. I lived in books about people who lived in books about books.
I slept in a hammock of post-modern expectation.
My brain grew weary of the vine-choked paragraphs. I kept an inventory of scars.
I was wrapped tighter than a roll of quarters. I had bowling balls for feelings.
But look at me now, I’m a sail ripping a hard wind. A meadow—gone to seed
Melissa Tuckey is author of Tenuous Chapel, a book of poems selected by Charles Simic for the First Book Award at ABZ Press and editor of Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. She’s a former Tompkins County Poet Laureate and an emeritus fellow at Black Earth Institute. Melissa Tuckey lives, gardens, writes, dreams, and teaches on Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ land in Ithaca, New York.