"Where I Eat" by Claire Schwartz

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend August 10, 2018   Where I Eat   Claire Schwartz

On TV, someone is selling the idea of buying by way of a happy family by way of a cleaning product. I want—, I say. Then your mouth on my mouth. Your mouth on my belly. And then.   I was never good at being a girl. All those hands made dirty work. Once, my grandmother scooped the Tennessee soil, put it in my mouth. It tasted true. I wanted more. In my steepled city steeped in song, I pitied that christian god his labor. He made marrow and astonishment of us. We made bludgeon of him, bland bread of his son.   My neighbor used to be a missionary. Now he spends days painting a bird pecking at the eyeballs of a dead girl. In the painting, you can only see the bird. See how the artist probes the light so the feathers shimmer. Beautiful,   the TV mother says to each guest as the house burns down. She sashays through the parlor, stopping to nibble on a stuffed mushroom, dab sweat from the brow of a dignitary. Everything is a metaphor until the body abuts it. Even then. Metaphor with blood. Metaphor with teeth.   Metaphor with epinephrine. I name each blow desire. Look how your hand revises my form. Extraordinary ability. Prodigal child. You leave and take your weather with you. I take your language to polish my wound, but rarely do I dare to mean anything at all. A poem is evidence   of nothing. You cannot prosecute with a poem. I thought your violence made me good. I thought your desire made me beautiful though the signs chirping wanted all had your face. Maybe you've named me innocent after living so long in my mouth. I, for one, always fall in love with the person holding the pen. What will you bring me when I tell you what I've done? Lobster, slant of light, doilied petition, blond girl playing scales on the violin?   Oh, I will reach right through her. I will extract her best music.                    Copyright © 2018 Claire Schwartz. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "Is the poem always I's alibi? If I says it beautifully is saying it also a way of flaunting I's beauty? (Look what I am worth. Do you like me like this?) Question: What is the circumference of a white woman's wail? Answer: A nation. If this body is the place from which I speak—I speaks—(how) can I turn language to expose the violence of I's testimony? (How) can I be otherwise? You don't need to like me. Something about love is at stake. Something about beauty." —Claire Schwartz   Claire Schwartz is the author of Bound (Button Poetry, 2018). She is a PhD candidate in African American studies, American studies, and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Yale University, and lives in New Haven, Connecticut.   Photo credit: Hannah Cornfield Poetry by Schwartz   Bound (Button Poetry, 2018) "Bonfire Opera" by Danusha Laméris "Accommodation" by Camisha L. Jones "Beauty" by Ariana Reines August Guest Editor: Evie Shockley   Thanks to Evie Shockley, author of semiautomatic (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Shockley and our guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038