my poetry for a change: Immaculate

heavens, i haven't posted for more than six weeks! "what happened?" you ask, dearly faithful reader. well, august turned into september: students, essays, committee meetings knocked & i answered. but now i've returned to gravity & light with my own poems, newly published & ready for blog exposure.

disclaimer:btw, these are long lines arranged in couplets. if the format breaks the lines into long/short, know that the short lines belong with what's above it.

IMMACULATE

Mama warned me if I slept with a boy before marriage the Virgin Mary would snatch
me away. Where to I was never sure. Maybe New York or Los Angeles. To a bedroom

of satin--sheets so smooth I’d slide into Heaven. Tony was my first. Tall with a dimple in his
chin, he liked to pinch my butt up the stairs to civics. Twenty-four steps with him right behind.

In March he gave me a broken heart on a silver chain. Kept the other half in his front pocket.
A good luck charm he said. Never thought about being swooped up by Mary when I kissed

Tony. Felt him grow in my hand like giving birth to something I wanted to know.
Mama believed virgins hung the moon, though not a soul in our family ever stayed that way.

Cousin Raylene was living proof. Did whatever she wanted. The Virgin never messed with her.


_Soundings East_ vol. 28, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2006).