New Poems

Faye Kicknosway

The Cheer Knocked Out of It

I’m about to wrap myself not
in a book but in—one after the other—movies—

a form of cataract—
of Mother Sereda
washing all the color out

my mood elevated from scabrous

to chloroformed.

Technicolor, black and white—
sanitized
by repetition—

for example: Billie Holliday gets shuck
of Broderick Crawford, but not
of William Holden—him

she marries—he’s whittled her down
to his size—

as do all the ninny Nice Guys—

blonde, brunette, red head—
she starts off raucous, noisy—runs
in her stockings—ready to belt him
with her purse or fist—

by the time he’s changed his hat—

she’s suckered—
cosseted
in his high regard
of himself.

Frame by frame—little sips—him—
the absence of life—here

where I am—and

where I am not—

Map

I been electrocuted in Texas and a movie star in Alabama. I been
nailed to a garage door in Idaho and fed to an ole lady aunt’s
chichuahua in Florida.

Not Ohio, not Nebraska, nor any state carved in the map can kill
me. Lord knows they’ve tried.

I got teased hair and the longest legs in the project and if you
don’t think that don’t get people’s attention, think again.

Jesus is my savior. I’m His headlights, His string tie, His scratchy
teeth. I had my first surgery on the altar of my devotion. Every
sin there is I got it in my pocket.

And my gra’ma told me why: “You been South of a man’s belt
buckle since you been born. And your tits will sag, and your ass
will droop. That’s gospel,A to Z.”

Death tap danced up my legs in his mirror-toed boots. The yellow
eye of Hell parked right off the back porch. But I am risen, yes,
and I got the liver spots and the pin curls to prove it.

Jesus burned the handcuffs off my long sweet suckle on the
Devil’s hind tit, and I slid into Him, every pore.

Portrait

Uncle Death came out
the front door, his nose hair
curled and waxed, his hands
pretty as halos.

Feathered with kisses,
he slid inside

the collar of
a woman’s dress.

She scratched.

He whistled.

She sighed, her breath
a pool of air

he tucked
into his pocket.

Scherzo

It’s me—anchored here—she wants as house for every word.
She’s caught fire, examining herself—look!—
not disappeared, not drained away—absent—
look!—from which closet to hide in?—
which sack to sew myself in?—how dig free of her?—
all bubbling—the stamina

it eats!—skin pouches, corrodes—leach!—succubus!—
how to deflate her, undress her
of her noise—collusion—that’s what’s made this!—
collusion—kindness the scar that invited infectious her—
beware the rapturous—proselytizing

every word’s been gleaned
from God’s throat—her!—its scribbled passage—
the canary’s dead in its cage I want to say—dithery,
doddery me the wrong ears.

She’d forgotten to settle a lid above the potatoes, they—
and what was in the oven—burned—as did he—
her lover—by her hair—lifted her up
from where inspiration—its terror—had fastened her—
she stabbed him—with a fork—in his eye—
to let the light in—and her out—

sibilant—stuttering—”Let me
catch my breath.” Indeed: rope it shut—let mice—pimply
with frost—coffin it in their tongues.

It Has Dreams

The sky races
like a taxi
to the airport.

Inside its clothes,
weak barley tea, black bread,
and women
with waxed mustaches.

Such perfect footprints;
how much do they weigh?

Ask a spider, every hair
an eye.

© 2020 Faye Kicknosway

====

Faye Kicknosway has published 14 collections of poetry 2 of which were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Who Shall Know Them?, Viking Penguin Press Inc, 1985, Mixed Plate: New & Selected Poems, Wesleyan University Press, 2003. She has received a Michigan Foundation of the Arts Award, an Arts Achievement Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a PEN, Syndicated Fiction Award. Born in Detroit, she grew up in Portland, LA, and Detroit, earned a BA at Wayne State University, an MA at San Francisco State College, taught at the residential college at The MFA Program at Goddard College in Vermont, at Wayne State University, San Francisco State University, and at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she is known by the name Morgan Blair.