[27] "Reunion"

Reunion

By Deidre Price

Twenty years brought me back

from Vegas to Columbus,

the place I knew best

before the best became better

when I became we,

and then we two to we three.

The history of a place

breathes its memories into us,

air wending itself into each space,

each wandering crack

in our hearts and our head.

The history of a place

pulls our strings taut

until every vocal chord

seeks to say the words

we would not on our own.

I found him lying where I left him,

steady and six feet beneath my feet,

below a tower of a tree among a sea

of stone tablets punctuating the Georgia ground

like a thousand gray underscores.

Flowers celebrated my father

as I spoke to my wife,

my we,

in a symphony of bright petals,

each vase overflowing with harmonies.

I’d never heard the sound of red

or seen lilac lullabies ushering in such sleep.

Here, every yellow petal sang out moonbeams

while my father’s blues bellowed behind

these songs as long as leaves.

And then a fawn from seeming nowhere

leapt into this colorful song

jumping over headstones

as if to add fermatas.

In the unlikeliest of places—

and thank God for it—

life lingers.

[26] "Volta: A Birthday Poem"

Volta: A Birthday Poem

By Deidre Price

Because you must turn twenty-nine today,

and I must keep three years' paces ahead,

I note our separateness in foot and head,

yet hand and deed both keep us on our way.

If on this friendly path comes a delay,

a toe starts up a tumble where you're led,

lean fast toward me and fall my way instead,

for I am built to brace falls night and day.

If time should dim our paths like it dims stars,

should we find forks and wander as friends do,

Though chasms, rifts, eclipses always are,

good roads erode because time washes through,

you must know I am here, and here's not far

when I hold half the rope thrown out to you.

"Volta" means time in Italian. Within the context of the Petrarchan, or Italian sonnet, which this poem is, volta also means "turn," which must occur at the ninth line (L9) of the stanza. 

This poem is for Ali Bloxson, a lover of all things Italian and collaborator for This Open Line, on her twenty-ninth. 

[25] "We Pioneers"

We Pioneers

By Deidre Price

Screaming into forbidden, uncharted lands,

we found a strange hope and home,

despite being blindfolded and naked,

alone even though we were together.

Hope is what you must feel in your hands

when the land from which you flee

is a city of scars with a history never stopping breathing

even though we held those stories under water

and when they would not cease to kick,

we dried them off, and tried a flame.

When they would not die, we left and led ourselves away

into a place as far as we could find

until our scars changed from red to glass.

Our histories' lungs seemed,

at this great distance,

still and silent enough

to make us believe

we'd begun breathing

on our own.

[24] "The Lion Has a Job Interview"

The Lion Has a Job Interview

By Deidre Price

I came prepared,

had my mane tucked in,

my nails polished.

I even ate before I came

to keep my instincts at bay.

I entered the cage to the sound of a gate

closing behind me, keys jangling

in an unidentified pocket.

They came prepared, too,

a mural of suits, hose, and heels,

cold, memorized lines paired with warm faces

and a script held out like meat on a stick,

a ball to keep me half busy.

Each took his turn circling

while each question closed in,

the weight of nothing feeling like something,

as it pressed into my head,

pushing out ordinary trick after trick.

I know the routine:

when to pounce, when to wait,

what sounds to make,

when to take the bait,

how to get a reward.

They know the routine:

I'm a lion.

And that's why it takes six of them

to one me.

[23] "Trial Separation, or Five Classy Ways to Deal with a Cheating Husband"

Trial Separation, or Five Classy Ways to Deal with a Cheating Husband

By Deidre Price

ONE

I'll paint a chalk menu on the wall,

write seven dishes to cook this week—

one for every woman you had

instead of me.

I'll knead memories in pie crusts,

top them with tall, meringued fantasies,

after folding in some of mine

with some of yours.

TWO

I'll double starch your collars

when I press the shirts

with seven shades of lipstick on them,

all but mine.

I'll launder our wedding day,

the births of our children.

I'll keep washing and pressing

to get the truth out.

THREE

I'll wipe down your dash,

shred glovebox receipts,

collect clues from the floorboards.

I'll see seven cities on the map,

note you as both Lewis and Clark,

believe that I was strong enough to stay

in a place you never could:

home.

FOUR

I'll let you grab my ass

when I do your dishes

because the children might see.

FIVE

I'll set all the alarms in the house,

ring your front desk for a wake-up call,

put that laundry on the line,

knock the privacy fence down,

write our address on the Parade of Homes,

put the proof on the coffee table,

turn on the floodlights.

We'll all see or go blind trying.

[22] "Segments"

Segments

By Deidre Price

To be pulled off, pulled away,

pierced and undone,

to be made passive, put upon,

then set upon a table,

shielded with a napkin,

not knowing

whose side they're protecting.

To be pressed into again,

those pieces spread too wide and apart,

a second separation from the self,

a second inspection that will tell

only answers you already know.

[21] "Introduction to Philosophy"

Introduction to Philosophy

By Deidre Price

I keep ink in a vat by my bed.

You might call it a well,

maybe an ink receptacle,

a squatty jar even,

but then you'd miss out

on the smallish detail

that my brain resides there.

Yes, my whole bloody head

lives in the ink vat

that sits, unremarkably,

on a light wooden TV tray,

my makeshift nightstand,

alongside empty baby books,

and at least seven slung off necklaces.

Purposefully, I keep the vat close by.

It's not that anyone might steal it.

We live in an unsuspecting 3/2

that passes for middle class.

No one would know that my brain is here,

working away in a glassy black vat

beside a too-long borrowed Dave Ramsey book.

I mostly keep it close by

so that it doesn't wander off while I'm dreaming.

I've always been bad with putting retainers in before bed,

but I'm revival religious about removing my head.

It needs a rest as much as I do.

I respect it with a respite,

as I walk away, bare and alive, into my dreams.

But my brain is a colicky newborn,

a lonely and bored toddler,

a loud, thirsty child,

a sexed up teenager out past his curfew.

It's an alarm clock battling Tourrette’s,

a bad mattress,

a jumpy criminal on the lam.

I have screwed a top on the vat,

but my brain bruises when it hits the lid,

and the noises keep me up at night.

I've given up and given in,

getting up to nurse her every two hours,

tucking him in again,

walking her into the kitchen for water,

letting him try to knock up the whole neighborhood,

hitting the snooze more times than she deserves,

adding some bubble wrap,

but nothing works.

I am left with turning myself in.

[20] "A Vertical Miracle"

A Vertical Miracle

By Deidre Price

If a stem situates itself in your hair,

I must believe only that it was born to be there.

I must believe that a seed had a calling

to push, push, push

out of its skin,

up through the ground,

into a new being 

tall enough to be seen.

You, too, are a vertical miracle.

If you situate yourself anywhere,

I must believe only that you are born to be there.

I must believe that your life has a calling

to push, push, push

out of your skin,

up through the ground,

into a new being 

tall enough to be seen.

[19] "On the Subject of Dating: A Prose Poem"

On the Subject of Dating

By Deidre Price

People go about dating all wrong--decked out, dolled up, half-drunk, and with music so loud it doesn't matter the conversation. 

Be sick around this person, let there be kids nearby, have an annoying dog who pees on everything and barks incessantly, let the power go out, endure at least one tragedy together, know what they worship and why, and play a little poor sometimes because you might be poor someday. This person will be your world, and the world isn't contained to nightclubs, cliche fondue restaurants, or those ridiculous dolphin cruises. 

This person may be cleaning up after you when you cannot care for yourself, may be holding you up in a shower because you've been half-gutted and need the strength of an entire extra human body, may be holding your children some days because you cannot.

 

[18] "The Company of Others"

The Company of Others

By Deidre Price

for Josephine Ava, born 6:30 p.m. on March 29, 2013

You had only just arrived

when you flew to Washington, D.C.,

because of a “heart problem.”

Even though I am 961 miles away,

I can see all the way from Florida

that your doctors have misdiagnosed.

They’re looking only at the machinery of it.

They don’t know the whole story,

the history of hearts or the history of you.

-   -   -   -   -  

The truth is that everyone has heart problems:

The fact is we begin with far too few.

We’re assigned two hands, two feet, two lungs, two kidneys,

pairs of eyes, ears, nostrils, lips—extras of all the ‘must haves.’

God doles out three trillion pores per person,

100 billion neurons, more brain cells than we see stars in the Milky Way,

while daughters get 400,000 potential eggs in their tiny ovaries.

But we start with just one heart

and not a single spare in the trunk.

-   -   -   -   -

A heart needs an assist sometimes,

needs to confer with its peers,

for it’s a fickle, fragile thing until experience

teaches the memory that the heart works best

in the company of others.

We’re taught from birth to follow our hearts,

but having a change of heart means a new map.

A heart can make you fall in love,

but it can also make you fall out of love.

Some hearts go rogue and break others’ hearts,

and if a heart gets broken often enough or badly enough,

it can turn hard or stop.

-   -   -   -   - 

If anyone’s heart ever could be perfect,

it would be yours, Josie.

So, I call this a simple case of heart amnesia.

Remember you come from a long line of good hearts.

Your heritage has been built up,

lining every chamber, every wall.

I’ve known your father’s heart,

soft but strong, movable but not faint,

a willing, open heart that risks itself daily and fearlessly.

I’ve known your mother’s heart,

breaking and grieving for others’ brokenness and grief,

rebuilding itself because she lives to love, to serve others.

These hearts came together to make yours.

Your atria are full of charity,

your aorta, full of God.

Both ventricles have enough room to hold the helpless.

Every valve is strong enough to watch the world’s weight pass through.

You see, it’s exactly because you are not your own,

that your heart was designed to move and to be moved.

You arrived in the company of others

with hearts strong enough to beat for yours, too—

and they do, and they will—

until it remembers its name.