Open Mic Night
My voice is a bird taking flight in the wind
as I speak words from my own fingers
scrawled blue black across white cotton
recycled resumes and lost years on the back.
I sing, exultations, into a cavern filled with people -
body smells and coffee breath cloud me,
a ring of eyes flicking up and down my body
they judge my speech and my ample self.
Squeak, stumble, the paper trembles
unprepared for acclaim or distain
I sit, folding chair pinching my bottom
and tears form veils in my baby blues.
Silence is not golden, and I wait, panting
and nothing happens until the next skirt
approaches the podium with skinny arms
large breasts and an unbuttoned shirt.
She speaks of puppies and fairweather friends
the applause, deafening, explosive in my ears
I crumple months of emotions in my hands
and pray to the goddess that my next life is as a man.
- Victoria Munn
(06.18.08)
South Pearl Street
Housing authority projects in a chain link fence
open screens showing yellowed curtains,
sun glazes eyes tired with work and heat.
The thud of deflated soccer balls against tarred blacktop,
the screech of children as they slide down heated metal,
faces dirty and thirsty and sad in the sun.
Flaking lead paint, steel bars on doors a jail,
the sentence eighteen to life in this small complex -
years of being examined through tinted windshields.
We cast down our gazes, fumbling and blushed,
as we roll up our windows with powered buttons
blasting ice cool air and privilege at our faces.
- Victoria Munn
(06.18.08)
The Big Box
Burnt sienna
strangely named pillar
among the wax rainbow
24 colors, no repeats.
I love you best,
your burnished brown
perfect for lips or hair
I wear you down to smooth
rounded
ineffectual
blunt.
In the stationery aisle,
among the smells of
construction paper
wood, color, wet
mucilage
and non-toxic pigment
I ask for another box, 24 please.
The other colors are still sharp,
but I need my burnt sienna -
I caress the pointed new tip
and draw beauty with a smile.
- Victoria Munn
(06.18.08) |
