2 poems
To Bear
to bear a child means to cover her in fur
provide a future of epic sleeps and a body
so utterly her own entire landscapes slide away
when she comes into view to bear arms
is the circus collar and chain around her neck
as she sits at her desk
the circle of snapping dogs growing tighter
to bear witness the silence of a bear
lumbering through devastation yet hopeful
that honey and rest are somewhere just ahead
her hope almost too much
The First Eviction
was Eve’s conviction
that anyplace
was better than one
always under God’s big eyeball,
and remember how young
God was then?
Like a first-time parent
or a new teacher
overreacting to each infraction
as a matter of policy,
though when God suggests
maybe it was just
to prepare us
for a world
where the punishment
never fits—or at least
never solves (or resolves)
the crime—who are we
to argue?
We snap a picture
of the Sheriff
locking an invisible door
between two trees,
hurl a rock or two,
and set off with glee.
Rita Mae Reese is the author of The Book of Hulga. Her work has won numerous awards, including a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Stegner Fellowship, and a “Discovery”/The Nation award. She designs Lesbian Poet Trading Cards for Headmistress Press, is in the bluegrass band Coulee Creek, and serves as the Co-Director at Arts + Literature Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin.