April 13: Book of Zippers
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Martha
Apr 13, 2025, 11:18:09 PMApr 13
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Book of Zippers
Luci Arbus-ScandiffioWhen I was a child
I was always touching something
the crease in the wall
the crease in the man’s face
a button to the umbrella
which I broke by pressing
thirty times in a single day.
Allegedly, I was unintelligible—
like a foghorn I bleated
and filled my chest with air.
I lived like a raisin
stuck in someone else’s pocket—
was happiest in winter
til my birthmark turned red.
Blood red! And slightly blue
on the edge. In the children’s wing
they froze it off—I slept like a number
between 1 and 10. The girl next to me
was getting her ulna reset.
She was hidden by geraniums
which were planted between our beds.
I assumed “reset” was a button
the nurse would press—
the sound was like a scissor
slicing open a vinyl chair.
Then I felt my own arm unzipping,
the butterfly escaping,
a hundred white stars falling out.
the crease in the wall
the crease in the man’s face
a button to the umbrella
which I broke by pressing
thirty times in a single day.
Allegedly, I was unintelligible—
like a foghorn I bleated
and filled my chest with air.
I lived like a raisin
stuck in someone else’s pocket—
was happiest in winter
til my birthmark turned red.
Blood red! And slightly blue
on the edge. In the children’s wing
they froze it off—I slept like a number
between 1 and 10. The girl next to me
was getting her ulna reset.
She was hidden by geraniums
which were planted between our beds.
I assumed “reset” was a button
the nurse would press—
the sound was like a scissor
slicing open a vinyl chair.
Then I felt my own arm unzipping,
the butterfly escaping,
a hundred white stars falling out.
==
Today in:
2024: Broken Periodic, Maya C. Popa
2023: Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III), Gwendolyn Brooks
2022: We Lived Happily During the War, Ilya Kaminsky
2021: Hurry, Marie Howe
2020: Oh, Robert Creeley
2019: It Was Summer Now and the Colored People Came Out Into the Sunshine, Morgan Parker
2018: In Two Seconds, Mark Doty
2017: Aubade, Louis MacNeice
2016: Before, Ada Limón
2015: Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt, David Bottoms
2014: Ullapool Bike Ride, Chris Powici
2013: Clothespins, Stuart Dybek
2012: Ghost Story, Matthew Dickman
2011: Graves We Filled Before the Fire, Gabrielle Calvocoressi
2010: On Being Asked To Write A Poem Against The War In Vietnam, Hayden Carruth
2009: The Bear-Boy of Lithuania, Amy Gerstler
2008: Today’s News, David Tucker
2007: All There is to Know About Adolph Eichmann, Leonard Cohen
2006: Gamin, Frank O’Hara
2005: [this is what you love: more people. you remember], D.A. Powell
2023: Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III), Gwendolyn Brooks
2022: We Lived Happily During the War, Ilya Kaminsky
2021: Hurry, Marie Howe
2020: Oh, Robert Creeley
2019: It Was Summer Now and the Colored People Came Out Into the Sunshine, Morgan Parker
2018: In Two Seconds, Mark Doty
2017: Aubade, Louis MacNeice
2016: Before, Ada Limón
2015: Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt, David Bottoms
2014: Ullapool Bike Ride, Chris Powici
2013: Clothespins, Stuart Dybek
2012: Ghost Story, Matthew Dickman
2011: Graves We Filled Before the Fire, Gabrielle Calvocoressi
2010: On Being Asked To Write A Poem Against The War In Vietnam, Hayden Carruth
2009: The Bear-Boy of Lithuania, Amy Gerstler
2008: Today’s News, David Tucker
2007: All There is to Know About Adolph Eichmann, Leonard Cohen
2006: Gamin, Frank O’Hara
2005: [this is what you love: more people. you remember], D.A. Powell
+ Today's poem: Book of Zippers, Luci Arbus-Scandiffio
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