Issue Ten

LEARNING TO WINK

Life is hard her mother tells her. You have to go out of your way to
make people smile because everyone wants to smile even though they
get caught up in their lives, the details of which are sad and
unimportant and can be released with a wink and a smile. Especially
men, she says, who shoulder most of the worldly burdens. When she
drives to the pharmacy, or for a cheeseburger at the Ho In, her mother
makes a point of making men smile. At red lights she leans toward the
window smiling at men in semis, or cabs. And soon, they are both
winking at mailmen and city workers, ditchdiggers and traffic cops,
she and her mother, sailing down city streets, highways and alleys,
smiling, winking, nodding. Even in restaurants her mother goes out of
her way to wink like that, and often the men pull a chair up to their
booth, or offer to pay for their lunch, which is not the point, her
mother says, politely refusing anything other than a good story in
return. But sometimes they are insistent, following them through
their day until they are forced to sneak out the back door of a
restaurant, speeding away in the Chrysler, her mother laughing,
hysterical, patting her on the knee, warning her to cross her legs, and
hold on.


CAR INTERIOR #2

    she runs.  Moose sunset; into
forest of       Lights
rerun
    the prisoner.

She goes alone
    car
    and
smoke of the butt
himself on her thigh.

For all of you who say leave, try
running with a six-pack
    (these ones talking, these ones
with noses runny and even shush!)
    demands.
She wants to freeze them
    hold them manageable,
an audience
    not
    talking back.


AFTER HE’S GONE

Every word you held back hangs
like pollen. And what you thought
of giving, but did not, bumps

a rosary of intention. Unknown
paths abundant as dime-store
gems, and after dinner

you lie on the sofa slipping
your hand down your jeans,
suddenly clear that this was all

that could be done after pork chops
and six hungry mouths. Later,
you find yourself smoking cigars,

drinking port in a perpetual toast.
And when your mind narrows, and
your heart clings, you remember

how his chest felt when you tucked
that final note in his jacket pocket,
and you feel your spine lengthen.


Sina Queyras’ second book of poetry, “Teethmarks” appeared in the fall of 2004. She recently edited Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets, Persea 2005. Lemon Hound, her third collection, is due out in spring 2006. Her fiction and poetry have been widely published in journals and anthologies; she has appeared on several short lists and been nominated for National Magazine Awards in more than one genre. Queyras lives in Brooklyn and teaches creative writing at Rutgers.

Poems by Sina Queyras
taken from her book “Teethmarks”
published in 2004 by Nightwood Editions.
Used with permission.