UAB Digital Commons (Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham)

Moran, Mary Carol

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 03 Article 19 
2003 
Emu 
Mary Carol Moran 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Moran, Mary Carol (2003) "Emu," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 03, Article 19. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol03/iss2003/19 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Mary Carol Moran 
EMU 
Am I a flightless ratite 
(with unkeeled sternum), 
bound to earth and children, 
swollen-bellied 
kin to self-blinded ostrich? 
Often. 
But today, I'm a 
turtle, euphoric in mud, 
plodding on strong legs, 
pond in sight. 
24 


English

Vessel, Michelle

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 03 Article 33 
2003 
Aftermath 
Michelle Vessel 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Vessel, Michelle (2003) "Aftermath," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 03, Article 33. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol03/iss2003/33 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Michelle Vessel 
AFTERMATH 
It hurt worse to unlearn 
the fable of dawn. The fact 
is a slack gray tongue 
that bisects night and day: 
morning skulks through the crack, 
finite and flat. 
Inured as a god, it nods at a girl 
through the window of a closed video store. 
She is wobbly, unsure 
on her feet, mopping badly 
through hot strata of nausea, 
a taut skein of taint. 
She's reckoning the million 
small shards of an act, auditioning 
its name, giving the rude 
rip of it up to the air, 
who softens it 
into a premise, 
unclaimed. At ten, 
it's old 
men tapping 
at the glass doors 
42 
and tasks, tender birds 
blue-blank as forgiveness, that flock 
to edit the heft 
and hum of memory. 
43 


Aftermath

Duhamel, Denise

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 04 Article 29 
2004 
Lip Lines 
Denise Duhamel 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Duhamel, Denise (2004) "Lip Lines," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 04, Article 29. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol04/iss2004/29 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Denise Duhamel 
LIP LINES 
With the war and plastics and carcinogenics, with my tenure file and computer 
virus and high cholesterol, it's crazy to worry about the wrinkles over my lip, 
those lines that my lipstick has started to seek into, red rays around my mouth, 
red caterpillar legs. John said a few years ago, "Don't worry, Denise, you'll 
never get those. Only smokers get those wrinkles over their lips from sucking 
in," and I believed him, hoped those lines would stay on my forehead, around 
my eyes, but now they have come to roost, over my lip, even though I never had 
a cigarette in my life. I wonder if the lines came because I sucked through so 
many straws hoping not to mess my lipstick. I'd heard straws also kept diet coke 
from staining your teeth. Yellow teeth, another thing I worried about. But now 
the lines have come, encroaching on my vermilion border, the almost invisible 
line just outside the colored part of the lips. I always took my vermilion border 
for granted, though it would always be a soft carefree no man's land. And then 
when I went to get my eyebrows waxed, a few days ago, the technician said, 
"Will that be all?" and on the way home I kept staring at my downy mustache in 
the rearview mirror, the mustache which draws even more attention to the 
crinkles around my lips. I stare at my lip lines after I brush my teeth, pay morbid 
attention during Botox commercials. I put extra Oil of Olay around my lips at 
night. I research anti-aging creams on the web. I worry about colon cancer, it's 
true, and car accidents on I 95. I worry about not having enough money to pay 
the mortgage or buy groceries, which you'd think would put my lip lines into 
perspective. Oh little lip lines, tiny haiku, lines of 5/7 /5 resting on their sides. 
What would the Buddhists advise? Make friends with your lines. Easy for them to 
say, especially the old wise monks with their sweet young skin, living in the 
right climate for decades, talking to no one. 
37 
• 


Lip Lines

Smith, Barbara

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 05 Article 16 
2005 
Love Poem 
Barbara Smith 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Smith, Barbara (2005) "Love Poem," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 05, Article 16. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol05/iss2005/16 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Barbara Smith 
LOVE POEM 
Remember that dog, 
The one that killed chickens-
That handsome wire-haired terrier named Lady 
Who wasn't one, 
Being both male and unladylike? 
Poultry fluff, 
They thought that Lady would play or be food, 
And then they were dead, 
Caught by the neck in terrier teeth 
That never brought blood, but lumps of baby chick 
That he dropped at our feet, proud. 
You remind me of him. 
22 


Love Poem

Driskill, Kathleen

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 05 Article 23 
2005 
Our Neighbor's Flock of Peacocks Wander Over for Another Visit 
Kathleen Driskill 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Driskill, Kathleen (2005) "Our Neighbor's Flock of Peacocks Wander Over for Another Visit," 
PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 05, Article 23. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol05/iss2005/23 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Kathleen Driskell 
OUR NEIGHBOR'S FLOCK OF PEACOCKS 
WANDER OVER FOR ANOTHER VISIT 
There aren't enough brains among them 
to make more than an addled chicken, 
but O when they strut through our back yard, 
stagger their tails into fluttering 
Chinese fans, the children stand at our window 
and whimper, ache to shepherd them 
into a tight circle, gather hands, listen 
to the squawk of sermon, old women's voices 
rising in shrieking psalms. Children 
and dim, beautiful birds, come together in prayer 
to the church of the great and uncouth outdoors. 
31 
m 


Our Neighbor\u27s Flock of Peacocks Wander Over for Another Visit

Darling, Sherry

My Wedding

Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne

Home Brew

Finn, Morgan

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 16 Article 14 
2017 
Guernica 
Morgan Finn 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Finn, Morgan (2017) "Guernica," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 16, Article 14. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol16/iss2017/14 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
23PMS. .
Morgan Finn
Guernica
Picasso furiously painted his huge black, white and gray mural in six weeks 
for the 1937 World’s Fair after Hitler’s Luftwaffe destroyed the tiny defense-
less Basque hamlet on a packed market day as a bombing experiment. Mostly 
women, children, the elderly, even animals in the field were shot down as they 
fled.
I. WOMAN WITH THE LANTERN
Never again will I lean from my window
and believe an orderly mind
can hold back sorrow. Instead,
I will live out my days wearing weeds.
Assemblymen who swore beneath our ancient oak tree
to protect us, lay scattered in pieces
…clergy blood colors the soil;
Ah, Miguel, our Archangel, avenge us!
If Napoleon, if even the Moors
could not break us, neither will Franco.
 
What’s done is done, mis caros.
For now, weep and curse fate.
Then pull the edges together.
To endure, pretend a little, nod vaguely.
If I could, I would gather you to me,
reminding you as my own children
that we must go on. Always there are angels
and other lanterns. Haven’t you heard
how, mid-dirge, the Gernikako Arbola, 
our sacred oak, has not fallen?
24 PMS. .
II. THE DESPAIRING WOMAN 
Has anyone seen my little Cecelia—
her footsteps full of
hesitation—not tripping over rubble,
but grabbing the air as if 
she might? Because of her illness,
whose name moves over my tongue like bad milk,
we honored her Saint’s Day early.
Even on this street of corpses,
I could spot her pale hands—
tapered as fish at market—
fingers coming to life
as she makes bread,
their clumsiness hidden in dough—
her short vision making our courtyard
seem to her more than gray buildings
held together by clothesline and rumor.
For Cecelia, the giving dough is enough,
and the embrace of clean sheets—
though who knows for certain
what she kneads and gathers in.
Blessed Mother, since her birth
my brow has crinkled from praying
to Santa Lucia, the virgin, to Santa Bernardina.
Please do not let this be their reply: Cecelia
snatched from me, no bread
for our table, laundry fluttering
until morning…
III. THE SPEARED HORSE
Our hooves clattered a warning on cobblestones,
but your crass music blocked us out.
Listen.
Must martyred saints scratch
25PMS. .
at your doors? Or do you think
my bowed back could carry you
to safety?
From the stable I felt
death straining and refused
to come out. Beatings from drunk masters
are better than bowels rotting in the arena,
or being herded to market. It is never
prudent to sleep lying down.
The earth waits, the earth wishes
to swallow our shrieks,
but this is not the first time
we’ve been brought to our knees,
tongues protesting…
IV. THE VICTIM OF FLAMES
Even now, Mama, you draw
your shawl around many sorrows,
yet turn away from me.
Years I tried to make up for what my presence
does to you. I’ve knelt
for your absolution
before Holy Communion,
but the slash of your mouth only tightened,
causing me to run by your clock after marriage,
my words out of sequence when my husband
tried to unbraid my hair, mine the last lamp
burning in the courtyard hours after
Javier stopped calling me to bed—
so that mornings he would wander outside to test
oak trees for warp as I spewed from the window:
“Can your fine ships keep our skies from exploding?”
as he stomped off to butt planks, and I
kept scrubbing even that high window
26 PMS. .
nobody can see—while sputtering 
to clotheslines and chickens, pausing only to 
pay my respects to the dead,
screeching afterward at Javier
about who would be next—until I
finally slept…oh, but Mama,
when I glanced away from the clock
I felt your hands striking…if 
you had embraced me just once,
I would have burst into five constant stars 
of white, pink, blue, green and yellow,
this wound of a mouth healed.
V. THE DISMEMBERED WARRIOR
Filled with its own thoughts, my head
never belonged to this body—any more
than the moon is part of the Pyrenees.
Head often floating outdoors,
teeth clamped on a cigar,
my face would peer through a window
at my poor Jacinta having one of her fits
while she screamed at me to do this
and do that until wine
made her pass out mid-scream.
Only then could I focus
on matador dreams
of how to stop German bombs.
Long before I raised 
the Basque sword against fascists,
these shoulders bore my parents,
                                       Jacinta,
                                           her family;
perhaps I would have made a good priest
if my first vision of Jacinta
had not cut with such a hot edge
27PMS. .
through my prayers. Yes, even at our wedding,
I saw her petals start falling.
El Toro, with the vigilant eyes—
when my Jacinta beats out her grief
on your vast shoulders, please tell her about
the flower blooming from my broken sword.
VI. THE LAMENTING MOTHER
When my daughter greeted me crying,
I refused food—until my milk ebbed.
Nothing tempted, not even those big purple grapes
I craved while pregnant—back when I still
slept and sang, Manuel’s hand on my belly.
Mother of God, what is wrong with me?
None of my sisters swore at their infants
when they whined away nights, but I fermented,
shaking my baby the way a dog shakes rabbits,
spewing taunts like in the gypsy soledades:  
 Your father bounces you on his knee.
 Tell me the last time he held me.
 Hungry again, my bawling daughter?
 Here, let my fists feed you,
 let them turn you the purple of grapes.
When the bells of Santa Maria chimed,
followed by guttural sounds,
I thought anything louder than
what shrieks inside me must be a sign.
Bravo, the pigeons are migrating early! I cried,
praying that our men would return
from the Bilbao front to snare them
with a net. Except rubble and flame rained
down. Releasing a tiny sigh, my child went limp
as a pigeon at market. I implored El Toro for mercy,
but He turned away from me
28 PMS. .
as a sky full of roaring falcons swooped
down—until it was all the same to me:
pigeons and falcons, dogs and torn rabbits,
bombers and the sad-eyed Mother of God;
who can escape the net, the net?
VII. THE SURVIVING BULL
Stiff your Oles! and roses,
your pious candles. Look around you,
instead!  Basque shrieks have split
the air, leaving behind only corpses, which I
have presented to you as children. Yet
you continue to gawk as if expecting
a curtain to fall, their remains
to jump up for one last curtsy or bow.
Do you imagine I lost sleep
to turn their despair into art just for your 
entertainment?
Stop smacking your lips
in mock sorrow, secretly glad it’s not you.
Shame for slinking around like mongrels,
poking here and there with insatiable fingers,
coaxing my hide to expose old wounds,
any patch of thin skin where the sword
can enter. God knows how long
I have glared across these tablelands,
backed against the Bay of Biscay,
without glancing behind me—except for
an occasional bellow over my shoulder
where some damn fool bird
keeps singing its heart out.


Guernica

Paul, Laura

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 06 Article 5 
2006 
Anitphon at Easter Dinner 
Laura Paul 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Paul, Laura (2006) "Anitphon at Easter Dinner," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 06, Article 5. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol06/iss2006/5 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Laura Paul 
ANITPHON AT EASTER DINNER 
It is not about love; everything is about love. 
Brown thrashers beat their wings into the dust. 
They hide in the azaleas when the dog goes out to pee 
and dust themselves again when she leaves. 
Cracked Easter dishes trim the table, offsetting 
a mold of gelatin in the shape of a bunny, 
nesting ceramic chicken salt-and-pepper shakers, 
one with a pastel necktie, the other a pink apron. 
It is not about love, says Grandma, explaining 
Father Mooney's Lent-ending sermon. 
When she takes her seat in the winged ladder-back, 
the dessert shimmies like her sarcopenic triceps. 
God is not that selfish, she says, as she reaches 
for the pepper. The dog licks her toes and is shooed 
outside where the thrashers nest. The sliced gelatin 
waits sideways on smaller plates. 
Mom shows off the hat she wore to service, brown 
grass and soft pink ribbons. The dog returns 
through the patio door and spits out a blue egg-
something from a Dr. Seuss book-
freckled and still warm from wattle nest. 
It lies on the Berber carpet like a planet. Grandma drops 
her dessert spoon; quietly, it chimes and circles 
in her teacup. Two thrashers strike the window, fanning 
azalea dust as they thud breast and beak against the glass. 
9 -


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Emu

Aftermath

Lip Lines

Love Poem

Our Neighbor\u27s Flock of Peacocks Wander Over for Another Visit

My Wedding

Home Brew

Guernica

Anitphon at Easter Dinner

Passion Flowers in Winter

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