A Jar Full
A jar full of quarters, full of sorries
used out of turn, sorries sent to the backyard
in the heat of summer, sorries the color
of a grandmother’s coffee table
when a girl falls onto its edge,
mouth full of blood and sorry.
Lo siento to the Spanish teacher,
forgive me Father at confession,
a jar bursting with a girl’s want
to make herself clean and good,
her heart a string of prayer beads,
Hail Mary full of sorry, Our Father
which art in heaven, sorry be thy name,
a thumb-shudder on the songs she forgets,
the nights she sets the dog’s water bowl
too full so that his ears leave heavy
with the sound of splash and wet.
The curse word that sounds right
on her tongue, quickly followed by,
you guessed it. A quarter every time
until her jar bursts with shine.
Mother says this will help banish
the empty word, the double r’s
swallowed in sobs, turn them
into other words like borrow
and carry, hurry and marry,
words without hiss, coins
the only currency she understands
like the dog knows his fleas,
how she combs them from his back
careful of those old teeth,
bared as if to say you’re not,
not really sorry. Don’t know sorry.
Bound
Having run out of needle and cloth,
the women fashion corsets
with what tools are left them.
Skin pulled taut with chicken bone
through the back, buttons carved
from walnut shells, sewn
between the breasts with hair
from the hardest widow, blood-ribbon
unspooling down the bowls of bellies.
All this, the elders say, or else we fall apart,
as we did those nights we wandered
as young beasts accustomed to being blind.
Now there is light and sharp teeth,
and the stars are anchored to earth
inside these bodies of string and clay.
M. Brett Gaffney, originally from Houston, Texas, holds an MFA in Poetry from Southern Illinois University and works as Associate Editor for Gingerbread House Literary Magazine. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Exit 7, Penduline, REAL, Permafrost, BlazeVOX, and Zone 3 among others. She works at the Dent School House during the haunting season.