Laura Sims is the author of two books of poetry: Stranger (Fence Books, forthcoming in 2009) and Practice, Restraint (Fence Books, 2005). She has also published four chapbooks, including Bank Book (Answer Tag Press) and Corrections (Bronze Skull Press). Her poems are forthcoming in the journals CAB/NET, Parcel, Colorado Review, and Denver Quarterly. She teaches creative writing, composition, and professional communication in Madison, Wisconsin.
See the pines
That are
“Such as they are”
And the ones that escaped
There were horrors
Then horrors
Were stacked onto those
What have you done?
Nothing—
Grafted, shaved
My god is this a man
I rode around and rode around
The middle of the world
I cleaned myself
A bottle and inside
She fell on top of me
Shocked, the human beings
I lied her on the floor
I said, “I lied her on the floor”
I don’t
I don’t deny (I wasn’t there) but
I’d had the dearest little dream
I was good
Or good enough
And careful
It was
Both
Fell backward on the bed
And she became a woman being done to
When I went hunting squirrels I felt
The low sound
When the glass jug shuddered
In the earth
*
We were trapped by the island
In the middle of the store
We stood side-by-side but only the rifle
Could touch us both
Then the sound, oh…just a low sound
*
Then I
Stepped
Around the island
I forgot
*
My sweatshirt stained with blood
It’s winter
I fear
I’ve committed a crime
I woke up and asked, Where’s
my mother?
*
I first hold snow
Its molecular structure—
Time
For my personal
History?
This one was brand new
(For a minute)
What made me
Do
Everything
Down
And
Red.
I’m controlled, I am not doing
Interviews. Still
In the marble halls
These poems are excerpted from A Sing Economy (Film Forum Press, 2008)
Copyright 2008 Laura Sims
