I like to think of you busy,
maybe washing parsley.
I want you to tell me I won’t be alone,
not a lamprey on the side
of the past, sucking for dear life.
My job is to eat the whole car
of my anger. I thought I had
a window seat but it was middle all the way.
As if I lived in a house
wallpapered with the cries of birds
I cannot identify.
As if a stick were held flat against
a slat fence. It’s hard to sit all day
with the yellow highlighter.
There are hard things inside
each of us like gravel.
—Letitia Cain
Letitia Cain received her MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared most recently in Raven Chronicles, Gravel and Mare Nostrum and she is on staff at Poetry Northwest. Note: This poem is a cento created from poems by Dean Young, Marie Howe, Sharon Olds, Bob Hicok and Larry Levis.
–Art: “Bright Red House (2013)” Construction by Ira Joel Haber
Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer, photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows both in the USA and Europe and he has had 9 one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture.
Copyright 2017, Letitia Cain. Copyright 2017, Ira Joel Haber