ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Amy Strauss Friedman is the author of the poetry collection The Eggshell Skull Rule (Kelsay Books, 2018) and the chapbook Gathered Bones are Known to Wander (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016). Amy’s poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Pleiades, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Also by Amy Strauss Friedman:
The Eggshell Skull Rule
Gathered Bones are Known to Wander
The Women’s March / The Ivory Tower is Coy
Rapunzel and Gloria Steinem Have a Baby
(Andromeda Constellation — Royal Sea Monster Bait/
The Chained Lady)
She’s the glow after
the morning after
night paints itself alive.
Only a man could see
a vagina an arm a chain
in the distorted graph
of this unsolved math equation.
Something cherished, precious,
a young button negotiating
rapt regret/perceived power.
No. She offers
a fundamental commodity
empty of envy: her labor.
Uncoupled and unconcerned
intently indifferent to the irons.
None of them light her way.
She will not die
in want of daylight.
Fourteen hundred times
the size of the full moon,
airfoils like dimpled metal twigs,
the interwoven stomach muscles
of a childless woman.
She’s wires tied to snow flakes
of light. A flashing cluster
screaming to be left alone.
The Andromeda Constellation is often referred to as "The Chained Lady," though I take issue with the framing of this myth. The story goes that Andromeda was chained to a rock by her father as a sacrifice to save his kingdom, but was rescued by Perseus whom she later married. This myth like so many others denies the agency of the woman about whom it is told and instead frames the men as heroes. Presented as a princess in a castle in need of salvation, Andromeda actually shines brightly in her own right as one of the largest and most prominent constellations in the night sky.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
