correct animal

last night i read rebecca farivar's correct animal, from octopus books. while i enjoyed many of the poems in the book, it is the poems in the book's second section- all based on works of literature- that i LOVED, that held me rapt and enamored and poetry-envious (definition: total envy of someone's poetry skills/extreme happiness that such skills exist and are made available for me to read). here are a few of my favorites; you can order the book here:

The House of Mirth

Dream baby
to arm,

let it
rock you,

let it lull.

You fought
this end.

Now it's come.


Maggie

Go to work
or go to hell.

You go to work.
It's terrible.

You go to man,
first though

out of slum
into slum, into hell.


Life Among the Piutes

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah
Winnemucca---

mixing causes confusion.
They think you betray,

want to know
where you gallop,

where you dropped
your flower name.


My Antonia

My, my, my,
what a draught-
necked girl

you've stayed,
grizzled
by the field

as most
field things.

Like the uncut grass
that marks
your father's grave,

you die down,
grow thick-

the paved roads
know not
to cross you.