The woman who pulled me
from my mother was singing,
and for days the tune stuck
to my bones. Music circulated
through my veins like milk,
pumping through me, the heavy
down-beat making me flail
and serenade my new family,
bewildered when they did not
join in. Agony it was,
being out in the world,
waves of fluid receeding,
the heartening back-beat
suddenly stilled. Laying
awake, the world too bright
and light for comfort, I
kept the tune folded about me,
keening, powerfully, my own
music of the spheres.
It was never beer and pizza
but not tea sandwiches neither
not for this bunch, they liked
to mix it up with something different
every time
Jane would suggest
a cloth on the table
and they'd groan;
better to sprawl before a roaring
fire and drink wine and swap tall tales
which Emily could tell best, no question,
long rhythmic, scary stories whipped
with wind and struck with crags and moor
poor Louisa'd shiver and point out morals,
making Em's sisters laugh and wink
behind their hands
and Ginny'd get on a talking jag
nobody could stop her, no one cut
through the spilling, splendid verve
of the sentences forming,
round and bosom-blown
and Georges would pull out the
thick cream cakes, and they'd all dive in
Michelle Cameron's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Riding
the Meridian, Niederngasse, Comrades, 3rd Muse, Atomicpetals, and the Paterson
Literary Review. She recently completed a young adult novel on Elizabethan England
and is at work on a novella about the dot.com world. Michelle lives in New Jersey
with her husband and two sons.
In this issue:
Esther Altshul Helfgott : Michelle
Cameron : Alison Daniel : Deborah
Finch : Jean Frances :
Fiona Robyn : Elisabeth
Spinks : Sandy Steinman : Tasha
: Tilotamma : Georgie
Young