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Eloise Klein Healy: a favorite professor of just about
everyone at Antioch University Los Angeles where she is Founding Chair Emeritus
of that institution’s World-Class MFA in Creative Writing Program. Her newest
book, The Islands Project: Poems for Sappho was
reviewed in the July Chickasaw Plum as
well as in The Harvard Square
Commentary,
The following poems, reproduced here with permission, are
from the same work:
Eloise Klein Healy (Google Images)
Eloise Klein Healy’s The
Islands Project: Poems for Sappho
The Isolates Aswirl With Life
she is water all
around me
rocking against
my thighs
there’s a little fumble
in the float
until our hands
touch
the gods don’t really
care except to note
with praise
how close
to divinity she is
and how I worship her
with such care
-Eloise Klein Healy, The
§
Maps of Things
Relatively Permanent
the color red a blush that rings the cheeks
the sun at dawn, the sun at sunset in
the west
the flush on the upper breast
the beautiful moon a sleeping lover
surprise at distance, at closeness
the silver lawn shadow-less at night
a robe folds in fabric
hillsides deeper green after rain
the textures of linen and flax and
cotton
horse
the tail flying straight
round muscles and flat muscles
the wild eye and the tame eye
wine in cups the grapes solidly present
seasons changing but holding back
taste that stings then softens
longing for the good
invincible emptiness of loss
then a gesture with the palm up
-Eloise Klein Healy, The
§
The Dry Air of
Sappho did not know herself
the way we know her, a piece
or two, saved by the dry air of
She knew herself
on a green island
with music and song,
with bountiful bays and boats
setting out at dawn,
sea winds at night.
She knew herself
minute by minute, and
on to the next
line, on to the next
note, touch, smile,
lamp to be lit.
Whole, or something like
how we know ourselves
right now, this breath and the next.
-Eloise Klein Healy, The
LAURIE BARTON is an ESL professor at
ODE TO MY RUBY RING
Like a droplet of wine or emblem
of Christ's blood spilled out to
reconcile
sinners to their God and to each other
my ruby sat like a queen on four
golden prongs.
Scooped up from black velvet in
placed in a pouch, gently flown home
to a goldsmith, who crafted its
elegant band.
You asked for my hand in
the bay our gleaming witness,
the future ripening before us.
I wore the ring in childbirth, at dawn
as our new, hungry baby cried out for
my breasts.
I wore it faithfully into the valley of smog
and waited each night for your workday
return.
When you courted your girlfriend, the ring was still mine,
sumptuous on my small finger.
SISTER-IN-LAW
Whenever we would hit the ball in court,
I watched the flexing of your slender legs-
my own grotesquely muscled, fat and
short.
I watched your diet: salmon, kiwi, eggs,
salad. Light on oil,
mozzarella cheese.
Red wine, and not the beer I drank
from kegs
in Berkeley-town. How you despised the
sleaze
of funky beggars on
But how you loved the
where you and Anthony's brother would
meet
and wed. Bells at the mission, I fell
down
the steps. Anthony caught me--he was
sweet,
but you were bitchy. I was jealous,
brown
and plain. But you were sleek and
glossy, slim
enough to model stockings in a gown.
So sadly, I lost Anthony. Lost him
to a girl from
you told me when I met you at the gym.
You hit the zooming ball and watched me scoot
to smash it back at you. Our history, moot.
PRESSURE
A millionaire dived off his yacht
and collided with a turtle.
Now he is stuck in a wheelchair.
A schoolteacher rode a Zodiac raft
in
and smashed into her teeth.
Ninety pounds of python
wrapped around a man's neck
strangling him in his own bathtub.
It's funny, my own life makes sense now-
hard shell, bloody grin, and
the pressure, the excess I love
Spencer Verner – the poet is a resident of Charleston, SC
Untitled
Zealots and the faithful
Wielding the wrath of God:
A mighty fortress storming
Through the gates
One cold November morning.
Days of old
Like familiar times:
The king places the word of God
Into the hands of knaves
Who lay in rows, like cod.
The fate of ages enshrouds the scene
The smoke and soot swirls and dances
While huddled mothers weep
For their sons and daughters
Who lie now at their feet.
And now, hands form temples
Eyes behold the light
Streaming through the pane
Kneeling and kissing the outstretched hand
The faithful and the fain.
Martyrs scattered over the marketplace
An arm with a watch affixed
Lies beneath an olive tree
Where children played
So free, so free, so free!
Clad in armor and in cloth
They lie together now
With eyes that do not see
Leaving unfurling ribbons
Flowing to the street and sea.
The
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