{"id":2772,"date":"2009-11-02T02:03:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-02T07:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/?p=2772"},"modified":"2009-11-02T02:03:56","modified_gmt":"2009-11-02T07:03:56","slug":"sunday-night-poetry-interlude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/poetry\/sunday-night-poetry-interlude\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday night poetry interlude"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I’m rifling through every single thing I own, trying to toss what’s expendable and pack what’s not. I came upon my stack of Collage<\/i><\/a>s, dating back to the mid-’90s (working in what used to be the Student Publications office had many perks, one of which was access to back issues), and instantly remembered these two poems from the Fall 1997 edition that I’d fallen in love with when I encountered them back in 2001 or so. Both are by Mary Cummins. I’ve Googled her and the poems to no avail. I hope she’s out there still writing poetry, because the things she writes speak so softly but mean so much. Anyway. Here they are. Hopefully she won’t mind me sharing them here. <\/p>\n

Honeymoons<\/b>
\nby Mary Cummins<\/i><\/p>\n

There was that time
\nin your mother’s house.
\nShe had blue curtains
\nand flowerpots on the balcony,
\nwatching the lake and our
\noccasional exploding
\nsemi-melodramas
\nof those years,
\nway before she died
\nand we became calmer lovers.
\nIt was some morning when
\nwe argued over something,
\nmaybe distances or faults
\nor the frying of eggs, and
\nshe wondered why we visited
\nwest Nevada every June
\nto pet her cats and shout
\nprofanities in her kitchen.
\nYou slammed some door
\nand I threw tupperware
\nat your stubbornness
\nand her hand-painted wall,
\ncringed as she surveyed
\nour splattered breakfast,
\nits plastic bowl
\nbouncing on the floor.
\nShe shook her graying head,
\nclicked her tongue and said,
\nhoney, it’s not love
\n’til you break something<\/i>. <\/p>\n

I don’t know you.<\/b>
\nby Mary Cummins<\/i><\/p>\n

You pour coffee
\nand I sell shoes.
\nYou have Clark Kent eyes,
\nfuzzed goatee, a tattoo
\nround your bellybutton.
\nI wear big heels and my
\nmother’s college dresses,
\nline my lids in black.
\nWeekdays I size up customers,
\nwonder where I’m going
\nfor lunch, send you good
\nmornings in corner glancing.
\nI hate life this way.
\nYou give me chamomile tea,
\ndollars and soft fingers for change.
\nIf one day I say hello,
\nI am twenty-two and stuck<\/i>,
\nperhaps you would run
\ngentle hands over the ruins
\nI’ve made of these years.
\nI place my tired hair behind my ears
\nand go for doughnuts.
\nI offer you pennies,
\nmy pressed skirt whispers please.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I’m rifling through every single thing I own, trying to toss what’s expendable and pack what’s not. I came upon my stack of Collages, dating back to the mid-’90s (working in what used to be the Student Publications office had many perks, one of which was access to back issues), and instantly remembered these two poems from the Fall 1997 edition that I’d fallen in love with when I encountered them back in 2001… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[261,234],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-murfreesboro","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1jWWl-II","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2772"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2774,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions\/2774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}