Two Poems by Ellen McGrath Smith
The catchphrase of the day is 'work/life balance.'
The catchphrase of the day is 'work/life balance.'
The border gate opens like sesame.
Her husband, deep in dementia, with a child's mind in a man's body, shoves her against the wall.
Do the dead Chumash own Santa Barbara or do Oprah and Jeff Bridges?
Natural, at this age, to decay and disjoint—to seek chemical solder and replacement parts.
The dying have more important things to attend to: like dying.
What stays. Stone barracks, a garret room, a too-high window.
Like a rich woman in furs, she warms her hide with soft targets.
Mother be forgotten, buffalo meat cut to strips to dry. The sun.
the priests—told the neighbors not—to sell their houses—told the white neighbors—not to sell their houses to black people—that to do so would be a beginning of an end