In this segment, we present to you a selection of poems either from talented poets publishing their work for the first time, or emerging poets who we think deserve better exposure. For the Winter 2013 issue, we focus on the poetry of Maggie Woodward.
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MAGGIE WOODWARD // Seven Poems
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For Sarah, Now Twenty-One
When I think about the seasons we spent growing up against the blue-gray backdrop of the Mississippi shrouded from the southern city by the woods we claimed with our magic-marker flags, the creeks we crisscrossed barefoot, hopping rock to rock, and the Presbyterian Christian School-- I remember chipped-paint fence posts, three-o’clock grape popsicles, our rusted red swing set and dented metal slide, running, heat-fevered, through sprinklers and grass lawns wild-limbed and flailing enough to not feel the pinch of fire-ants teething at our ankles. I remember cracking eggs for Saturday morning pancakes, the back seat of our mother’s minivan dirty with cracker crumbs and gum wrappers from our late-June trips mapping I-69 where we’d back-and–forth with Etch-a-Sketch or Woolly Willy until the night knocked us out-- your head crooked on my right shoulder, my left slumped into the window, our breaths even. We were as still then as we look in the Easter morning photograph from ’95, now dusty on a mantle in our parents’ home. there we are: framed in our department store dresses and shiny, too-tight shoes, heads tilted, smiling toothless, fingers squeezed around flower stems, standing in the church parking lot. I’m sure we heard the words, On the count of three, put your arm around your sister and smile. I don’t remember what she did then-- in the picture, we are laughing. Weeds 3 a.m. I lie belly-up on rough grass. My eyelashes flutter, stomach full of bees. The curly-haired boy is beside me with hands cupped and eyes wild. He smells of laundry and chlorine, looks into the green apples of my eyes. Not blinking, we taste the paper-thin air on dry tongues. Do you have it? he asks. I cannot speak, my voice swallowed into quivering limbs. He sighs, pulling his long white hands away. Then moves forward, closing the space between our lips. I blink. He rises, casts a crooked shadow across my body, then slinks away with the feral cats. Naked, I am still clutching. I try to hide the ragged holes. The oak tree laughs as I bury myself in its roots. She Doesn’t Remember It, But my sister & I once killed a snake with a shovel. it happened in the driveway: the screams woke our mother from her nap and caused the neighborhood dogs to bark-- but before anyone could rescue us, we had our tiny hands bound around the handle and in a noisy scrape, the metal hit the concrete and a little green snake was two. The Island once, we rode the ferry twelve miles from Gulfport to West Ship Island. on the boat I salted popcorn, tossed the blossomed kernels into the air above my mouth. I let them land light on my tongue, chomped them loud and open-mouthed, smacked my smiling, butter-slick lips. I was eight. when we got to shore, we followed a man who said a storm once split this place in half-- his flip-flops slapped against his soles, spitting sand out behind him as he walked. He slurred: Just like a woman to rip you in two. I tried to grin, but my throat was still coated in grease. I tugged at my mother’s sleeve, begging for water. Virginia 1997 my papa made fried chicken for breakfast-- in old home videos the table is set, the red-checkered cloth heaping with the handiwork of my eighty-something grandfather who hobbled from oven to griddle to stove several times while my sister and I looked up from our chairs at the camera with grease-grins, licking the oil from our fingers and picking every piece of meat off the bone. Radio Once, we sat in the red-walled room of the house you were renting by the train tracks-- on the edge of your bed, I watched your hands dance down the strings of a guitar, their sway-skip smooth and precise as you sang the lyrics scrawled in the memo pad you kept in your jacket. I could read our history in the black ballpoint ink and in the thick, painted walls of both our bedrooms. In year four of seven, you slept by the school and took hour-long trips to steal me from the suburbs. Back then, we rolled our windows down, felt the rush and soothing sting of cold air on warm skin, slick with humidity. You sang to me, hummed of Memphis and magnolias. White flowers still blossom in my sleep. This is Your Map, Annotated to Memphis: first, take I-65 south to Nashville. switch to 40 west. count down mile markers like seconds leading up to the new year. you will pass the Loretta Lynn dude ranch-- stop for a tour, but know the cook shack burned in February. resume driving. lower your windows. look up and out when you drive over the river if you want to feel humbled. take the exit numbered 25: Arlington-Collierville. you are almost there: watch the curves and your speed. remember, people you know have died on this road. they were almost home. everyone always is: remember, every picket- fence you pass is a portal. |
Maggie Woodward is a student at Western Kentucky University, studying Creative Writing, Literature, and Gender & Women’s Studies. Her poetry has appeared in Rufous City Review and Emerge Literary Journal. She is graduating in May and hopes to pursue an MFA in poetry. Until then, she'll be keeping her fingers permanently crossed.
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