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| Melissa
Stein's poems have been published
or are forthcoming in 30 journals and anthologies, including
American Poetry Review, Many Mountains Moving,
North American Review, River City, Calyx,
Crab Orchard Review, and Seneca Review.
Her manuscript was first runner-up of 750 entries in Poets
& Writers’ California Voices 2004 contest;
her work was awarded first prize in the 2003 Spoon River
Poetry Review Editor’s Prize Contest; first and
second prize in the 2002 Literal Latté Poetry Awards;
and first prize in the 2002 Robert Penn Warren Awards. She
was also a semifinalist in the 2002 Discovery/The Nation
contest. She has been awarded multiple artist residency fellowships
by the MacDowell Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Villa
Montalvo Center for the Arts. She is a freelance writer and
book editor in San Francisco.
See
other poems:
Email
Melissa Stein
at melissastein@pacbell.net
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Wings
i.
Blue dragonflies buzz me like warplanes.
Their wings taste of rock candy,
smell like cellophane, hum
like a dentist’s drill. I want it
in my palms, that isinglass, I want it
rooted to my bones. I want right-angled
flight. Their only cargo’s that long body, the burden
of flight itself—I had it once. The plank
gave way; the bridge was tall; the wind
was stiff. And I resigned. Because it was over
I was quite safe. When water came up
like asphalt I barely splashed. That was it.
I still feel that wind and the ache
in my shoulderblades for want of wings.
I still feel height and the clarity of it. ii.
The drowned women in my dreams
have me at last; weed-strung hair,
weighted feet. Hope bloats:
I’ll carry them home, numb limbs
and all, tuck them into my sound
sheets. Comb their snarled hair
to silk. Stir them soup. Stoke
the woodstove. And sing, sing
lu lu lulu lu, hush-a-bye and
tie a yellow ribbon and this train
don’t pull no sleepers. Till they’re dreaming
in their soggy beds, dreaming of me, parched
field of brushfire grasses, bleached gold
and dangerous. Wave after wave
of heat, wave after wave of bodies
colliding in midair, torn wings still
better than ours, better than ours.
©
Melissa Stein, 2004
First published in Mischief, Caprice, and Other Poetic
Strategies, Red Hen Press, 2004
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