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Rachel Moritz
notes:
"Baby
Shower"
This poem
is from a manuscript, The Arrival Series, which is largely concerned
with liminal space--arrivals and hoverings below the surface and
outside of lived time. With "Baby Shower," I wanted to
explore the nuances of this loaded social phenomenon by turning
the details back against themselves and connecting them to a sense
of the odd temporal positioning of the event.
"Rent
and Punctuation"
This poem
is part of a series about house interiors. I was contemplating the
brackets within the "Symbol" choices in Microsoft Word
and thinking about the house as a bracket of human life. Human life
as defined by time; house as containing time; punctuation as edging
in language. Also, how what frames and contains will never touch
the "now" of the moment.
BABY SHOWER (TEMPORAL)
1
Navy-blue anchors making
the white cotton
washable just
male enough-"
How sweet"
while our anchors
drop
rusted and long-
gone into some little
depth
2
Landlocked in present
tense, the women liking to larder
their words
"You'll be busy
enough
soon--"
Blue fleece going
side-zipped
soon
3
Internal edits--
Say, "woolen
baby sweater looking sweet
enough to eat,"
not
the difference between "has eaten" and "ate"
"has been born"
and "birthed"
4
Our eating a parody
of waiting--
Powder blue cake
flowers chosen
over pink
Women lower their
glinting forks:
"Do you expect
me to finish
this?"
5
Internal dislocating--
Swimming elbow soon
to be
the anchored
tense
______________________________________________________________
Rent and Punctuation
As in, the house carving a moat in its block
and calling this
a geological bracket
As in, the kitchen
table splitting itself, each
have forming one
[
How we might see
ourselves inside this house
Carving
or splitting]
"I even condone
the mantel clock:"
The
house writing itself a letter, white
face apprehending
"pallid imitation
of the moon"
metallic
framing
"Now is now"
as anthem inside
the house
"You can change
the date and time
on the thermostat"
Moonlight bracketing
each
parallel wall
[
]
not converging as
containing "now"
Rachel
Moritz has work appearing, or forthcoming, in The Beloit Poetry
Journal, Controlled Burn, and Poetry Motel, among others.
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