--EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, MIRACLES HAPPEN

…Yesterday, I finished reading Jeanann Verlee’s, “Racing Hummingbirds”.

What a terrific collection.

It’s part poetry, part prose, altogether wonderful, unsettling and arresting.

If you think you’re a person who doesn’t fancy poetry, you should try this book. 

You’ll be glad you did.  I promise.

Here are two sample pieces:

Numerology

78           -   the number of cows slaughtered every minute in the U.S.

100        -   my score on every spelling test I’ve ever taken

4             -   the number of wedding rings my mother has pawned

16,200   -   the amount of money I’ve had to borrow from my father to pay your debt

113        -   my weight when I met you

245        -   your weight when you first purged a dinner

97           -   the number of times you told me I was fat

24           -   the number of beers you drank each day

136        -  my weight when you stopped touching me

135        -  the weight of your emaciated six-soot frame today

17           -  the number of times you refused to get help

21           -  the number of days since our divorce

76           -   the number of cows slaughtered since the beginning of this poem

SWARM

Learn how to say “no.”

Cram that word inside your mouth,

the whole thing, make sure all of it

gets in there.  Let it walk on your tongue.

Practice with it in the mirror, push it

out, make faces, learn to love the salt

and bitter of it.  Teach it to perch on your lip,

buzz, collect pollen from your sugary gloss.

make it swarm between your cheeks.

Then, when the days come (there will be

many) where he pushes too hard, speaks

too sweetly, when the hand at your thigh

draws a thump in your stomach, when

the bitch gremlin inside whispers, it’s not

worth the fight, says you can barter

for your worth tomorrow, when your ribs

shrink, when he unfurls his Almighty Smile,

when  four come at you at once, when

you love someone else, when the bar

is closing and your name becomes Take

What I Can Get, when the girls hate you

anyway, when you want him until the burn

if only he wore a different face—

pull back your lips, bare the teeth you have

sharpened to their perfect points, flick

your stinger tongue, set free your swarms.