Tag: Wendy Drexler

All the Hours the Night Has Left by Wendy Drexler

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All the Hours the Night Has Left

What I’ll never have is close to, or nearly equals,
what I’ve had. I find myself at equilibrium,

which may last only a day—the mayfly’s
brief happiness—no way of knowing

if this is happiness or merely the acknowledgment
of where I am, skittering and buzzing and looking

all around, the pond by now thick with my own kind,
the water the halfway shade of tea light and twig—

it no longer matters I can’t see clear
like the elephant god, remover of obstacles.

The first time I heard a concerto, and someone
told me what makes a key minor

is the lowered third, I listened to the sorrow
for myself. At last I can name it:

brokenness, beauty, the way through.

*

Wendy Drexler is a 2022 recipient of an artist fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her third poetry collection, Before There Was Before, was published by Iris Press in 2017. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, J Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, South Florida Poetry Review, Sugar House, The Atlanta Review, The Mid-American Review, The Hudson Review, The Threepenny Review, and the Valparaiso Poetry Review, among others. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily and WBUR’s Cognoscenti; and in numerous anthologies. She has been the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, since 2018, and programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club. Her fourth collection, Notes from the Column of Memory, is forthcoming from Terrapin Books. All the Hours the Night Has Left is the final poem in this collection.

Topanga Table by Wendy Drexler

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TOPANGA TABLE

When she takes off her backpack, I can see
that the back of her coat is torn. She sets
her pack down on a barstool, unzips it
as our waiter passes her cans of tomatoes,
soup stock—five times she places
each can in her pack, no words, the one giving,
the one taking, casual yet practiced,
then zips up her pack, slings it over her.

I’ve been staring. I return to my locally sourced,
organic, sustainable cashew nut smoothie,
so thick I have to eat it with a spoon, arugula salad,
watermelon radish, a pickled egg shredded
over the top like confetti—and I snatch

another glance at the woman whose face
is a featureless plain, I now see, as she turns
to leave, retying her head scarf, straightening
the knot, overdressed for the California weather—
heavy coat, a scarf, rubber boots caked
with mud, though it’s not raining.

*

Wendy Drexler’s third poetry collection, Before There Was Before, was published by Iris Press in 2017. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, J Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, South Florida Poetry Review, Sugar House, The Atlanta Review, The Mid-American Review, The Hudson Review, The Threepenny Review, and the Valparaiso Poetry Review, among others. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily and WBUR’s Cognoscenti; and in numerous anthologies. She’s been the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, since 2018, and is programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club.

WALKING THE WOODS WITH YOU ON THE DAY OF ATONEMENT by Wendy Drexler

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WALKING THE WOODS WITH YOU ON THE DAY OF ATONEMENT

The rain has swelled the scent of sod’s decay.
You squat to a toad, squashed except its head,
a wasp, eating its eye. So this is the way,
and wondrous, that the living are fed by the dead.
Here, sap binds the wounded flank of a maple.
Here, lichen day-glows the dark wet bark
of a fallen branch. We thread past a kettle
pond once ripped by glaciers. Mosquitoes mark

my arm. I’m their chance, as I try to greet
my fear, slow impatience. I can’t plug
each leak. We’re here, your heart and mind beat
irregular time that wears us with a shrug
the way these branches must submit to air.
Next year? I hadn’t meant to make a prayer.

*

Wendy Drexler’s third poetry collection, Before There Was Before, was published by Iris Press in 2017. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, J Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, South Florida Poetry Review, Sugar House, The Atlanta Review, The Mid-American Review, The Hudson Review, The Threepenny Review, and the Valparaiso Poetry Review, among others. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily and WBUR’s Cognoscenti; and in numerous anthologies. She’s been the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, since 2018, and is programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club.