Heather Matesich Cousins
Poems
from Something In the Potato Room
Listen to more:
At Apostrophe Cast. This recording was made in May 2010 in the basement of my childhood home in northern Michigan.
Or at the Purple Cow, WUOG 90.5, Athens, Georgia. This recording was made in October 2009 reading at Cine in Athens, Georgia. Big thanks to "Purple Cow" and the Vox Reading Series, which hosted the event.
A Swim
Cutting through water, the fin
that became a hand becomes a fin again.
You, who were human moments ago,
standing on the edge of the water on two knobbed legs,
are now a long body moving through
the cold, black lake, press of blindness
on closed eyeballs, gray coils of deafness
in the ears, a pale slip of skin.
You turn your head and open your lungs,
close them again, bubbles
of air escaping from the wide holes
of your nose, slippery, fast.
Soon you will come out:
heavy as a boot, dripping death,
pulled toward the earth as if sucked
by mud: how hard it is
to return, thin legs having to hold
the entire body up.
originally published in Alehouse
Late
Everything that comes to Northern Michigan
comes late to Northern Michigan.
The sun that rises on us has already risen
on the Atlantic Ocean and its jumping fish;
the black brothers of Philadelphia standing
in a circle, fists dug like roots into pockets;
the Connecticut gardener holding a wooden-handled
spade, mixing grinds and eggshells; the New York
train master, brass keys wrangling on a gray cord,
taking tickets from people who are going somewhere:
click, Click. Click, click.
Spring has already
lit the azaleas in the South, Savannah's pink
and white and soft conceit; it's already
greeted Kentucky and Tennessee,
chased across pastures, up the river banks,
and it's crawling up the blue mountains
like a flame, like a maniac, like a sex tingle.
Even in Ohio, the crocuses are pushing up
their sharp white and purple heads.
In Michigan, we're still waiting to see a robin.
He won't come until the snow is gone,
and the snow keeps coming back.
Robin, robin red breast, we soft voice,
afraid of the scrape of our own warbler.
We look at our fences and trees. The snow
is flecked with pebbles and gray, edged
with mud. It is not the snow of winter's clean.
He'll come to us like the Old Testament--
a bird, a sign.
We're cold and white and tired.
When we step outside to open the rusty mailbox--
bills, bills, bills--our boots splash through slush
and slide with mud. The bitters in the wind crack
our lips and sting our noses. But it's not trying
to bury us any longer. Sharp like smelling salts,
it's trying to wake us up.
originally published in The Yalobusha Review
What I wanted to do most
in the museum was touch.
To have that authority
which no visitor is per-
mitted. I often stood in
front of the glass, think-
ing about the artifacts.
The basket of wool cards
and sewing shuttles. The
Ojibway arrowheads. The
tray of Civil War buttons:
one with a gouge across
its eagle. I would imagine
the original owner--hair
color, rotted tooth, mud-
dy blanket, bear dreams,
final vision: shuddering
birds, winged readies
dropping from the sky.
in the museum was touch.
To have that authority
which no visitor is per-
mitted. I often stood in
front of the glass, think-
ing about the artifacts.
The basket of wool cards
and sewing shuttles. The
Ojibway arrowheads. The
tray of Civil War buttons:
one with a gouge across
its eagle. I would imagine
the original owner--hair
color, rotted tooth, mud-
dy blanket, bear dreams,
final vision: shuddering
birds, winged readies
dropping from the sky.
Listen to more:
At Apostrophe Cast. This recording was made in May 2010 in the basement of my childhood home in northern Michigan.
Or at the Purple Cow, WUOG 90.5, Athens, Georgia. This recording was made in October 2009 reading at Cine in Athens, Georgia. Big thanks to "Purple Cow" and the Vox Reading Series, which hosted the event.
A Swim
Cutting through water, the fin
that became a hand becomes a fin again.
You, who were human moments ago,
standing on the edge of the water on two knobbed legs,
are now a long body moving through
the cold, black lake, press of blindness
on closed eyeballs, gray coils of deafness
in the ears, a pale slip of skin.
You turn your head and open your lungs,
close them again, bubbles
of air escaping from the wide holes
of your nose, slippery, fast.
Soon you will come out:
heavy as a boot, dripping death,
pulled toward the earth as if sucked
by mud: how hard it is
to return, thin legs having to hold
the entire body up.
originally published in Alehouse
Late
Everything that comes to Northern Michigan
comes late to Northern Michigan.
The sun that rises on us has already risen
on the Atlantic Ocean and its jumping fish;
the black brothers of Philadelphia standing
in a circle, fists dug like roots into pockets;
the Connecticut gardener holding a wooden-handled
spade, mixing grinds and eggshells; the New York
train master, brass keys wrangling on a gray cord,
taking tickets from people who are going somewhere:
click, Click. Click, click.
Spring has already
lit the azaleas in the South, Savannah's pink
and white and soft conceit; it's already
greeted Kentucky and Tennessee,
chased across pastures, up the river banks,
and it's crawling up the blue mountains
like a flame, like a maniac, like a sex tingle.
Even in Ohio, the crocuses are pushing up
their sharp white and purple heads.
In Michigan, we're still waiting to see a robin.
He won't come until the snow is gone,
and the snow keeps coming back.
Robin, robin red breast, we soft voice,
afraid of the scrape of our own warbler.
We look at our fences and trees. The snow
is flecked with pebbles and gray, edged
with mud. It is not the snow of winter's clean.
He'll come to us like the Old Testament--
a bird, a sign.
We're cold and white and tired.
When we step outside to open the rusty mailbox--
bills, bills, bills--our boots splash through slush
and slide with mud. The bitters in the wind crack
our lips and sting our noses. But it's not trying
to bury us any longer. Sharp like smelling salts,
it's trying to wake us up.
originally published in The Yalobusha Review
