 |
Paula Melton has an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and her writing has appeared in Café Review and Iowa Review.
|
 |
|
 |
Published Fall/Winter 2007
 
Feng Shui
by Paula Melton | ns 69
Record rainfall keeps us
Inside, where I cannot help
But regard the collections.
My mother has always said
Someday this will all be worth
Something. But she does
Get rid of things. Today
In her woodstove, where the piano
Used to be, are burning a thousand
Cancelled checks from the 1980s.
The children wrestle behind me
On her bed in the middle
Of the living room. I sit
On the edge looking
At the shelves where my father's
La-Z-Boy used to be. Somewhere
Among the toothpick holders,
Sweater guards, coasters, and napkin
Rings is a hand-carved Pieta replica
I bought for Christmas at the mall
With my paper route money. I keep
Getting kicked. Someone's nose
Bangs middle C. Crying
Commences. Kicking continues.
Yelling is about to begin.
Looking back, I see small
Gray foot-smears have besmirched
The twist of sheets. Someday
I am sure they will find a gene
For dishevelment and disrepair.
I remember sitting beside her
On a lime green couch, where
The dead computer is now,
Rubbing the smooth ends
Of my mother's long fingernails,
Scrunching my feet under her
Big warm thighs, half-
Listening to a Little House
Book. That was everything
I knew about love. Someday
This rain will stop. I go to fix
Dinner in my mother's kitchen,
Where I did not learn to cook.
She does not have a cutting board
Or chef's knife, but fifty-two
Sets of salt-and-pepper shakers
Cover the countertop. To get at
Forks and spoons, you
Have to open the oven door.
In accord with her arrangements,
Someday all this will be mine.
Tomorrow we will play outside
Despite the rain, and catch tadpoles
And fingernail clams in vernal pools
And check on the wild strawberries
And the blackberry blossoms
And take turns jumping
Off the big rock. Someday
I will drive us home in the middle
Of the night in the rain
Down 250 with all the signs
Reminding you to watch for
Horses and buggies, over
The slippery mountain and down
Into West Virginia singing
The Grass Grew Green All Around
Twenty or thirty times for
The baby who will not sleep,
Until we drive into white
Where the sky used to be,
A white so dense I cannot see
The hood of the car and we
Cannot stop and we cannot
Keep going and I will put on
The flashers and hug the white
Line and keep going,
Because I have learned
A thing or two
About love.
|
|
|
|
MR BOOKS
Critics at Work
ed. Jeffrey J. Williams.
Critics at Work offers a guided tour through the central, sometimes confusing and frequently controversial developments in contemporary literary and cultural criticism. The tour guides, however, are not distant observers but have been primary participants in those developments, and they report on theory, cultural studies, the literary canon, the recent focus on race, sexuality, and other identities, the state of the univerisity, and the role of the intellectual. Throughout, they consider the not always easy negotiation of politics and culture.
|
|
