ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Julie Brooks Barbour is the author of two full-length collections, Haunted City (2017) and Small Chimes (2014), both from Kelsay Books. Her most recent chapbook, Beautifully Whole, was published by Hermeneutic Chaos Press in 2015. She is co-editor of Border Crossing and Poetry Editor at Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, and teaches writing at Lake Superior State University.
Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry:
January
I Waste Everything but Words
run the water while washing dishes
and never turn off the bathtub faucet
tight enough. Drip after drip after rush —
a waste. When I get a little extra money,
I spend it. Unexpected, it's a gift,
and don't I deserve something for denying
myself the truth? I mind my manners
and hemlines because my honesty
would tear limbs from trees and buckle
my father's heart. If the world crashes,
I'm responsible. People say speak up
if I have something to say, otherwise
I'm wasting my life. If I tell the truth,
I call love into question. Loosen bricks
in a ranch house. Mildew and chew clapboard.
If the chance to be a good girl might be wasted,
I've been good and so quiet for half a life.
There's a chance I'll waste my rapid breath
and every frantic pulse. One time I told the secret
so I could lift some of this heaviness,
but it never lifted. My body still courted panic.
So I told it again, then again and didn’t need
to say please hold this close. Those I told
knew the power of what I said when I named it.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
