4 poems
from Femme D’Interieur
Stephanie is a 2020 winner of the Test Site Poetry Series Book Contest and the winner of the inaugural Betsy Joiner Flanagan Award in Poetry
AS IF I HADN’T JUST UNDRESSED INSIDE HER
In the bathtub, of course
I’m in the bathtub
practically asleep
with the water
like bedsheets, twisted up
until I am a great big knot
a lie made of linen, the sum
of each small stitch
I am developing a pattern
on the surface, I sense
a dead fish, its fleeting
life, having known only
this world of sea & land
was the mystery. My mother
in the kitchen with
hips like canyons
bringing new bread
into the world. In
the bathtub, I welcome
sailors home, I speak
a language only porcelain
knows, her thighs
like two coasts, she pretends
to be shy, she pretends
she doesn’t understand
she is a woman, weeping
like a child for anyone
who will listen, for strangers
who are dying, I am cotton
in the morning & the tombstones
line up badly like teeth
in my bassinet mouth
as the future circles
just above.
IN PAINTINGS WE APPEAR IN FORESTS IN THREES
The verdict distributed its measures
throughout the chambers
of her house like a waltz
& in my heart, I wanted to
dance to the sentence:
Courage,
madame. Everything shall be taken
from you — your daughters, your kingdom,
your palace & your riches, the dreams
& illusions of your girlhood. Your freedom
cannot console you now.
Now I grow old
& I seem to grow paler & by the shade
in the hollow I forget
her name.
Unbearably beneath the falling
leaves, she offers to draw me
a circle
with her untrained hand, & the earth
stops to be given its form.
A daughter
presents a meditation on death
& domesticity, rape & memory,
presents you with a partition
between them & on it,
a portrait
of your world. There are women
in the picture whose names you
will never know. I am present
with them & still dancing, as
with so many daughters
buried in the paint beneath
the gazebo of sheets.
EVEN I, WHO HAVE NO LOVER, LOVE
Bitter & jealous as a demi-
goddess, she pours from herself the
nectar of her being, becomes a vessel
for children, the bitch in the sun.
She is statuesque. I know my devotion
is difficult to understand; so too
is the language she speaks. Nothing
could stop me from kissing her cheeks
again & again, wearing away at the
stone, but soon they are sunken,
so warped that when she falls
asleep on her side, moisture
collects there in a small pool
that we can drink from.
PREFACE TO THIS EDITION AT DAYBREAK
In this version, a giant yellow monarch
takes to the sky, as the seawalls
go up & the water rushes down
her thigh. In the futility of trying to be
fine, our lady of the immaculate
conversation floods the city
with a single word, burns it down
with a vowel. To be clear
she is not me, nor am I
her & this isn’t a reality. It is simply
a scenario to consider. In this
edition, she has three subjects:
fur — specifically sable, ermine &
chinchilla. In Lady Windermere's
Fan, Wilde understands these
nuances of a personality as
a privilege one never earns.
Still, I’m glad we had dinner,
for tomorrow, we must starve. I have
sat too long at many tables
with this woman, weaving letters
to her lovers in the epistolary air, like
a dragonfly. With an obscene & unnatural
thinness, she removes inches from her
waist through sheer insanity. As I
disappear, I always wonder if
somewhere the fruits of my labor are ripe
for the taking, but I know it is tough
to find a temperate climate, let alone
live in it. It is difficult to find your way
back to the house when you sit
with your back turned to it. I was there
in that room where she would live
out her martyrdom, where a devoted
coterie of monkeys once in a blue
moon would carry her in her armchair
to the church, where she would take
her lovers, awe-inspiringly
religious, the heroine of many
a strange story, unlikely as being
chased up a hill by a rattlesnake,
but still — worth considering.
Embrace the lying child
within. She has the curse.
Stephanie Berger is the co-founder and CEO of The Poetry Society of New York and co-creator of The Poetry Brothel, The New York City Poetry Festival, The Typewriter Project, and Milk Press. Stephanie earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the New School, taught in the English Department at Pace University, and has published two poetry chapbooks: IN THE MADAME'S HAT BOX (Dancing Girl Press) and THE GREY BIRD (Coconut Books). Learn more at stephanieberger.com.