READ LOCAL First boasts Utah’s most comprehensive collection of poets and authors. For this inaugural month of 2021, we present five poems by Cindy King. Her work has appeared in The Sun, Callaloo, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, River Styx, Cincinnati Review, Gettysburg Review, North American Review, and elsewhere.
Recently, King’s poetry was featured on The Slowdown, an NPR podcast hosted by former Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. A link to this podcast concludes our selection of King’s poems below.
King’s book, Zoonotic, is forthcoming from Tinderbox Editions later this year. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, she currently lives in St. George, where she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Dixie State University and editor of The Southern Quill.
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I sometimes believe that the breath, blunt-forced from his body
Had been returned.
Laid out on the collapsible cot
He begins to move. Beyond ambulance windows
Dusk joins the sky’s dark pieces,
Inspiring all things to come together.
Tom had a way of connecting, of understanding the whole.
The new moon offers its infant light,
Closing wounds, joining fractured bone.
It restarts his heart and the bright organs sing.
Vessels, veins open for joy. Love restores flesh
to memory’s bare bone: In the black night, stars appear.
How the sheet falls as he rises and passes through double doors.
And still I believe he is on his way home.
Tom had a way of connecting, of understanding the whole.
The new moon offers its infant light,
Closing wounds, joining fractured bone.
It restarts his heart and the bright organs sing.
Vessels, veins open for joy. Love restores flesh
to memory’s bare bone: In the black night, stars appear.
How the sheet falls as he rises and passes through double doors.
And still I believe he is on his way home.
Vessels, veins open for joy. Love restores flesh
to memory’s bare bone: In the black night, stars appear.
How the sheet falls as he rises and passes through double doors.
And still I believe he is on his way home.
The Rivers Runneth Black with Mascara
The widows soar-eth with parasols of flies,
with pressed-powder desert faces, the widows runneth over.
With pillbox hats and fascinators,
the widows runneth,
widows behind blind glasses and tinted windows,
broken widows runneth, widows streaked with rain.
The widows walk-eth the widow’s walk in button boots,
widows wear-eth corsets to train their sighs.
In bustles and petticoats, widows rustle-eth,
shower-eth earth with the feathers of ravens.
They bring-eth their lips together, hide-eth their lipstick teeth.
Merry widows will work-eth to please you.
With belladonna, with nightshade, widows
Coif-eth their hair with the precision of angels.
The widows watch-eth pornography
and are-eth not ashamed.
They do-eth the Hustle, a spinoff
of a spinoff that is twice as good as the original.
Ever certain of the finale,
widows will always see-eth things through.
She’s a killer, killer queen, gunpowder, gelatin…
they sing-eth, and you may block your ears
but still, you can hear the widows. Widows<
surround-eth you, pass-eth you between them
like a pink tetherball. They drop-eth you in a basket,
push-eth you through reeds
down rivers that runneth black with mascara.
With pillbox hats and fascinators,
the widows runneth,
widows behind blind glasses and tinted windows,
broken widows runneth, widows streaked with rain.
The widows walk-eth the widow’s walk in button boots,
widows wear-eth corsets to train their sighs.
In bustles and petticoats, widows rustle-eth,
shower-eth earth with the feathers of ravens.
They bring-eth their lips together, hide-eth their lipstick teeth.
Merry widows will work-eth to please you.
With belladonna, with nightshade, widows
Coif-eth their hair with the precision of angels.
The widows watch-eth pornography
and are-eth not ashamed.
They do-eth the Hustle, a spinoff
of a spinoff that is twice as good as the original.
Ever certain of the finale,
widows will always see-eth things through.
She’s a killer, killer queen, gunpowder, gelatin…
they sing-eth, and you may block your ears
but still, you can hear the widows. Widows<
surround-eth you, pass-eth you between them
like a pink tetherball. They drop-eth you in a basket,
push-eth you through reeds
down rivers that runneth black with mascara.
The widows walk-eth the widow’s walk in button boots,
widows wear-eth corsets to train their sighs.
In bustles and petticoats, widows rustle-eth,
shower-eth earth with the feathers of ravens.
They bring-eth their lips together, hide-eth their lipstick teeth.
Merry widows will work-eth to please you.
With belladonna, with nightshade, widows
Coif-eth their hair with the precision of angels.
The widows watch-eth pornography
and are-eth not ashamed.
They do-eth the Hustle, a spinoff
of a spinoff that is twice as good as the original.
Ever certain of the finale,
widows will always see-eth things through.
She’s a killer, killer queen, gunpowder, gelatin…
they sing-eth, and you may block your ears
but still, you can hear the widows. Widows<
surround-eth you, pass-eth you between them
like a pink tetherball. They drop-eth you in a basket,
push-eth you through reeds
down rivers that runneth black with mascara.
They bring-eth their lips together, hide-eth their lipstick teeth.
Merry widows will work-eth to please you.
With belladonna, with nightshade, widows
Coif-eth their hair with the precision of angels.
The widows watch-eth pornography
and are-eth not ashamed.
They do-eth the Hustle, a spinoff
of a spinoff that is twice as good as the original.
Ever certain of the finale,
widows will always see-eth things through.
She’s a killer, killer queen, gunpowder, gelatin…
they sing-eth, and you may block your ears
but still, you can hear the widows. Widows<
surround-eth you, pass-eth you between them
like a pink tetherball. They drop-eth you in a basket,
push-eth you through reeds
down rivers that runneth black with mascara.
The widows watch-eth pornography
and are-eth not ashamed.
They do-eth the Hustle, a spinoff
of a spinoff that is twice as good as the original.
Ever certain of the finale,
widows will always see-eth things through.
She’s a killer, killer queen, gunpowder, gelatin…
they sing-eth, and you may block your ears
but still, you can hear the widows. Widows<
surround-eth you, pass-eth you between them
like a pink tetherball. They drop-eth you in a basket,
push-eth you through reeds
down rivers that runneth black with mascara.
Ever certain of the finale,
widows will always see-eth things through.
She’s a killer, killer queen, gunpowder, gelatin…
they sing-eth, and you may block your ears
but still, you can hear the widows. Widows<
surround-eth you, pass-eth you between them
like a pink tetherball. They drop-eth you in a basket,
push-eth you through reeds
down rivers that runneth black with mascara.
but still, you can hear the widows. Widows<
surround-eth you, pass-eth you between them
like a pink tetherball. They drop-eth you in a basket,
push-eth you through reeds
down rivers that runneth black with mascara.
down rivers that runneth black with mascara.
Immaculate Conception
Strawberry rhubarb
The baboon presents
And here’s the little diner at breakfast time,
where she who is the-customer-
who-is-always-right hurls her
hotcakes back at the server
Will you live out the rest of your life alone
Wholly caffeinated
Wholly obscene
Aren’t you tired of extraordinary
No one is really whispering about you
Their lips are wax
You check them out at the checkout
while the checker checks your items
10 items or less
you have 11 or fewer
You make a wish upon a star
then change your mind
but it’s too late
You agreed to that date with a priest
Don’t worry
He won’t
There are only so many eggs
and then none
No reason to gawk at newborns
and their comically small,
grotesquely soft heads
that their mommies kiss
and slap once in a while
Stop calling your pet “baby”
She’ll never make love to you
No need to paint my mouth with lipstick
nor my eyes into black peacocks
No need to purge the chocolate ice cream
though I’d very much like to
I want to be cherished and adored
My hips shout
as time moves throughout my body
The thought, I remember
but that feeling
What is it?
Survivor’s Guide to Grief, Loss, Bereavement, Life-Imploding Tragedies, and Various Other Kinds of Human Suffering (Abridged)
Eliminate action verbs
Say deceased not dead
Don’t think that you’ll ever remodel the kitchen
Even with the modifications to your diet,
the polar icecaps will melt,
the average surface temperature of the Earth will continue to rise,
and still, that dress will never make you look like a movie star
As the house burns, the stove confesses
its love for the refrigerator
(who would have known?)
For all of those years they stood side by side
To save on tissues,
do your crying in the shower
If your clothes are dirty,
throw them out. Spit
if it’s hard to swallow
If it’s ugly, close your eyes
The human brain is not symmetrical
That’s not a rose, it’s an axe
That’s not music, but how were you to know.
That’s no cemetery, it’s landfill.
Your daughter may be my spouse’s killer
Your diagnosis may be my tax return
When God falls asleep, it’s difficult
for him to hear my prayers
Sometime even the wind is confused
A few of us can pretend we’re not looking,
or look as if we are not pretending
At some point comes the wisdom
You came for the insight
And stayed for the refreshments
the drumroll
the curtain call
It’s coming, believe me
Let me tell you, it’s coming
Little Oaths & Apologies
By the time you heard it again,
a therapy dog foiled the bank heist,
the old covered bridge was washed out in the storm,
the dictator was almost overthrown,
and Tom, he almost survived.
The man who slapped his child
came close to saying sorry.
Sorry, you can say it in just about
any situation and feel practically absolved,
better about how you’ve labored in the yard,
in a thunderstorm, yanking out ivy
that will grow back again next year.
Understand that these are Mother Nature’s intentions:
listen to the sizzle of rain on the blacktop,
bacon as it weeps in cast iron,
radio static, television applause.
For whatever it was they told you, forgive them,
because it just isn’t true—
mistakes were made, oversights and misunderstandings
Thank you for holding
your (desperate) call (for help) is being transferred and will be taken
in the order in which it was received by the next available representative
But he did complain about the back of the baby’s head,
about how it was blocking his view of her breast,
and the Cutlass Supreme really did fly
across the river and antiquated ruins.
And the weeks progressed, coupons
expired, milk spoiled in the dead of night—
substantiated, confirmed, corroded, ineffable,
and unspeakably, beautifully sorry.
Listen to King’s poetry on NPR’s podcast The Slowdown, hosted by former Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith.
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Categories: Literary Arts | READ LOCAL First
