Glass Night Blessing
A boy, a half-decade too young, brings me roses
at work, like I’m a woman who owns a vase.
I fixed the snapped silver clasp of my favorite
necklace tonight, the one I snagged off,
too drunk for the precision of fingers.
When I was a child church ladies said
I had piano fingers, so I prayed for a piano
so hard I found music in every empty space.
I sang praise from my snug closet walls
and the branches of the cherry tree out back.
I never shut up. Mom would leave me
in the bath alone. She knew I wasn’t drowning.
I never shut up. It took me years to understand
I came from a lineage of tone-deaf housewives.
But I bent the forgiving metal of this clasp
between slender thumb and middle finger
with such precision it must’ve made
a shattering pitch. Thank god there wasn’t
any glass in the room. It’s comforting to say
that everything happens for a reason.
I never got my piano. Nobody I’ve loved
has ever given me a rose when I loved them.
I didn’t take the 63rd bus home from work
the night the boys threw bricks through
the windows near Cottage. When shards
must’ve had their two seconds of night glitter
before nicking a woman’s hand. When the bus
evacuated into the street. When the boys
shot a another boy who evacuated that breaking.
I am this blessed: I don’t know how to judge
if gun wounds in movies are realistic.
—
This selection comes from Stevie Edwards’ book Good Grief, available from Write Bloody Publishing! Purchase your copy here!
Stevie Edwards is a poet, editor, and educator. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Good Grief, was published by Write Bloody in 2012 and subsequently won the Independent Publisher Book Awards Bronze in Poetry and the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award. Her second book, Humanly, is forthcoming from Small Doggies Press in 2015. She is Editor-in-Chief of Muzzle Magazine and Acquisitions Editor at YesYes Books. She lives in a castle in Ithaca, NY.
Darren C. Demaree is the author of three poetry collections, As We Refer to Our Bodies (2013, 8th House), Temporary Champions (2014, Main Street Rag), and Not For Art For Prayer (2015, 8th House). He is the recipient of three Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination. He is also a founding editor of Ovenbird Poetry and AltOhio. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.
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