Orange tabby in the foxglove.
Four beets in a bag.
The poppy’s blocky skeleton.
A net full of mulberries,
sweetest
at the point
they let go.
Untie
the soft knots
of the crochet.
Begin again.
Look,
there’s a lily.
Look,
there’s another one.
Copyright © 2023 by Susan Landers. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 12, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
She was for masturbation,
for getting to know yourself,
sexually. She caressed
her leg as she spoke. She sensed
unresolved conflict, Oedipal
strivings. Her own daughter,
she said, would walk
naked in her bra, try to take
her place on bed. This was nothing
to cry about. Every girl
wanted what mother had, wanted
her mother. She had my parents
in analysis and group. I would hear
her muffled name
through their door, as I lay
in bed, making
the first tentative gestures
toward myself, touching
thighs, hair. A woman
might do this with waxed
fruit, the back
of a hairbrush, a long
silver object borrowed
from a husband. One inserted the walking
stick, spilled
herself, fucked
its antique head. Fucked
the monogrammed head
of the father.
Left to her own
devices, one straddled
a vacuum cleaner, enticed
a puppy, led
the warm animal tongue
to her lap. Long ago
I imagined myself
conceived in masturbation.
My father handing
the great white seed
to my mother, who took it
on her fingertip,
and placed it delicately
inside her body.
From Rodent Angel (New York University Press, 1996) by Debra Weinstein. Copyright © 1996 by Debra Weinstein. Used with the permission of the author.
We cannot help but be students
of our fathers’ disciplines,
mine an avid disciple
of scripture and royalty.
What else can I confess?
That I was a child? I carved myself
into the civil shape of a knife.
Pared until only the edge remained.
I killed things because I could.
Magnifying glass and the sun
and the silent crawling things that
could not fight back.
That had no choice but to only
hope for mercy. Unable themselves
to beg. I confess. I was desperate
to know that I was not alone. Every day
we are made once more in the image of God.
Every day God asks, Cruelty again?
And every day we say, Oh Lord of Heaven,
please, yes, yes. Cruelty again.
Copyright © 2024 by Nora Hikari. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 8, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.