ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Samantha Duncan is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including Playing One on TV (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2018) and The Birth Creatures (Agape Editions, 2016), and her work has recently appeared in BOAAT, Meridian, The Pinch, and decomP. She is a prose editor for Storyscape Journal and lives in Houston.
Also by Samantha Duncan:
The Birth Creatures
Playing One on TV
In the Aftermath of A Natural Disaster
Routines: 11.08.16
Everyone is voting & the sun is out.
Everyone is voting as I buckle & unbuckle car seats,
once in the morning, once in the afternoon, I stop for coffee, I don’t unbuckle,
the toddler is in the car & I am in the convenience
store, & this is political, my coffee
is mostly flavored milk-water & this is political, the sun
is out, the news is out, everyone
votes, there are no problems,
just a potential problem here,
a mechanical hiccup with a machine or with the news
or a toddler hiccup. I reheat my coffee, I reheat the news,
I plate finger-food dinners, no one eats, everyone votes while the news is on,
while the news is paused & I put brown boys in their beds,
while the sun sinks & my heart is paused & hopeful,
we eat hopeful, happy ice cream, our mouths are cold, the sun goes down
hours before the swing states itself,
weeks before the baby births herself from me,
minutes after I explain to brown boys the sun doesn’t really “go down,”
& we need ice cream, no matter
the outcome, ice cream is political,
my selfie at the Sonic while getting more ice cream is political,
& the sun going down rolls cold in my mouth
because what sinks is actually being circled. They called me
chocolate ice cream once, & now my brown body holds
a large single scoop, daughter due
to rise soon, & the news
is the news is the news,
it melts in our hands, it is tired, we go to bed.
It is morning & the sun. I rewind my coffee.
Everyone didn’t vote, the news says.
Some voted & some didn’t & it’s time to wake up, & I am
in bed thinking about my brown boys in their beds
who have to get to school but I’m bedded,
the brown girl in my womb whose labor I’ll have to rise for,
we are all bedded with the news, & the news is bedded in some way
with truth & saga in our mouths, & we are dizzy revolving.
This is the first day I do not rise.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
