Amie Whittemore

 

Amie Whittemore was the recipient of a 2007-08 Master’s Fellowship and is currently a poet in her second year of the MFA program at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale.  She’s had poems appear in journals such as Rattle, Poetry Midwest, Quiddity, Fifth Wendsday, Packingtown Review and has poetry forthcoming in the Atlanta Review and Bayou. 

 

 

 

The Calendar

 

When my grandmother died she stopped making sense.

She refuses to remember she’s dead.

She crashes family gatherings, pesters the tenants in her old house.

It’s hardest in April when her birthday snags her like a loose seam –

                                    the special day cake, the tally of cards in the mail.

 

 

I told her to stop.

One blue eye watered, one eye fell out.

When I woke I was holding her,

snared in the morning after her husband died,

knotted in each other’s throats,

my arms girdled around her waist.

It took months for her to slip through the sieve of months –

 

                        The first calendar arrived the next year, a note slid

                        from her side of eternity to mine.

She tells me she hates its datelessness, misses memory –

 

first kisses, lost marbles, broken legs, farms sold, resold, divorces set.

Dough rising. The warm crowd of days.

 

Now her face slides off her face. Now she upsets me when I find her

organizing my recipes, rearranging the spices.

 

I yell at her. I draw a shade

between her insistence and the sleet grey of winter months,

the sun-slate of summer.

 

 

I can only stand her in the spring –

 

The tulip world of new birds and leaf bud,

the swans she once fed webbing her name across the river.

 

Her face no longer a jar holding a face.

Her face the globe of a peony.

 

I sink into its scent as she once did,

read the petals until May ends

then I let the wind bow her head into its hands,

her face a patina over mine, cracked in two –

 

one half, steam rising from the river.

One half the frozen glare of a severed hoof in the snow. 

 

 

~(first published in RATTLE Winter 2008/09; finalist in the poetry competition)

 

 

 

The Other Runner

 

There is an other runner; we start in the same paces.

Before long our strides divide: I fall behind

and she veers in another direction.

I see her shadow sometimes as I go through my course –

distant, sweaty. Sometimes it is her footprints

that mark the space between puddles. The prints

look like mine and my head splits: have I run this stretch already?

Her stamina is made of horses — thousands whose throats

carry sea winds in them. I do not know why.

Maybe her lungs have never been filled with the butts

of cigarettes and dirty dreams. Maybe she is still in the race

from the school bus to the backdoor, overcoming her brother

at the last turn. Maybe she has no sense of time.

I do not try to chase her. Her scent is damp as fog

and her breath knows only endurance. She will always defeat me.

But I do not forget this: we started in parallel, unison.

Each time, without fail. When my legs are sore, I slow

to a walk and whisper: in the beginning, you were with me.

We were one stone thrown into the lake until you skimmed it.

 

                   ~(first published in Quiddity, Spring/Summer 2008)

 

 

First

 

If I hadn’t lost my mouth I’d tell you how you kiss. You give it to me first and I keep it. Like learning how to whistle. The dog unwraps candies at our feet. We look at each other and wait for the other to laugh. You hum your favorite song; I hear it when I’m sleeping. We take off our shoes and our feet match.  The pond out back has made me naked. Sometimes when you put your hands on my skin they are cold. They feel like rodent feet.  The sounds I make distract me from this. You have a car and I have no keys. We are on the bed as innocent as daylight when my mom comes home. She takes the lid off my heart and looks inside. It’s a jar with a moth in it but I tell you it’s a sloshing bucket. I tell you in the rain the same words you tell me. What I don’t say is gravel pressed under the wheels of a truck. You ask me to drive but you are not my dad. You teach me safety is not a belt. You stick to me like a tattoo that comes off with soap. I form roses out of tissue paper, chapped hands, and green pipe cleaners. Always: the sound of a zipper. The wooden box you hand me keeps filling up with words. The words hover between our faces like flies. I stick to you like paper. You are covered in wings. 

 

I stick to you like paper. The words hover between our faces like flies. The wooden box you hand me keeps filling up with words. Always: the sound of a zipper. I form roses out of tissue paper, chapped hands, and green pipe cleaners. You stick to me like a tattoo that comes off with soap. You teach me safety is not a belt. You ask me to drive but you are not my dad. What I don’t say is gravel pressed under the wheels of a truck. I tell you in the rain the same words you tell me. It’s a jar with a moth in it but I tell you it’s a sloshing bucket. She takes the lid off my heart and looks inside. We are on the bed as innocent as daylight when my mom comes home. You have a car and I have no keys.  The sounds I make distract me from this. They are like rodent feet. Sometimes when you put your hands on my skin they are cold. The pond out back has made me naked. We take off our shoes and our feet match. You hum your favorite song; I hear it when I’m sleeping. We look at each other and wait for the other to laugh. The dog unwraps candies at our feet. Like learning how to whistle. You give it to me first and I keep it. If I hadn’t lost my mouth I’d tell you how you kiss.

 

~(first published in Poetry Midwest Spring 2008)