Poetry | March 01, 2007
Poetry Feature: Laura Kasischke
Laura Kasischke
Featuring the poems:
- My father’s mansion
- More and tinier [Featured as Poem of the Week, May 8, 2008]
- Prayer on bus
- The Suicide
- Rural husband
More and tinier
A long green thread unraveled from a dress, picked up by the wind, caught in the branch of a tree:
Not even my aging body belongs to me.
My heart made of strangeness and cells. The sleeping salamander of my spleen. That miraculous, ancient needle threading a dress through a tree. It is one kind of difficulty to be the thread. Another to be the needle. Hardest of all, the tree.
Every day, I become more and tinier. Eat less. Think before I speak. On Sunday, after sex, I remember the boats speeding across the water, propelled wildly by the lightest breeze, their sails swollen with it, still blowing on a summer Sunday through my memory. Oh, those boats, this is what they mean.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Poetry
Jan 08 2024
3 Poems by Scott Frey
Pink Feather Boa She is pinching my son’s small thumb and index finger around the petals of a buttercup, chanting She loves me; she loves me not,… read more
Poetry
Jan 08 2024
5 Poems by Virginia Konchan
Apostrophe My husband didn’t understand prayer. He said people who pray are deranged. Who do they think they’re talking to? Even with Bluetooth technology, do they not know how ridiculous… read more
Poetry
Jan 08 2024
5 Poems by Christine Marshall
Fall My father put his head through a wall. Leaves fell in red and orange puddles, the house dropped on the market. After-school sunlight dwindled, the solstice loomed. My child… read more