by Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor
Write poems that peek at this mess
like dawn light from curtains of cloud,
or the red throated pouch poems
that perch on tree carcasses just
after a storm when begging sounds
are misunderstood as singing.
Kitchen empty of all but mold, my sister
sends pictures. I recalled
the acrobatics required to wash
dishes, suds a newly soiled
bowl when so many others,
a holocaust of bowls, cramped
in that still floating barge. Another
poet says even a Jew shouldn’t write
a metaphor like that! But excess
is my inheritance. So sue me!
I could hear her defense, mine,
after the 27th dumpster, the sink
buckled. Above its cracked
cabinet, I could safely say
it looked like a capsized boat.
Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor, author of Imperfect Tense (poems), four education books, and numerous articles and essays, was awarded 2015–2021 NEA Big Read grants, a Fulbright (2014) and artist residency (2017) in Mexico. She is professor of language and literacy education at the University of Georgia. www.melisacahnmanntaylor.com
Hawaii Pacific Review 