Tag: Yvonne Zipter

What’s in a Name? by Yvonne Zipter

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What’s in a Name?

It was his before it was mine,
and so I hated it, its initial initial

like an angry bee in one’s ear,
its hard consonants hard as kicks

with a boot. Once upon a time,
I wanted to discard it, to choose

a moniker unsullied by history.
But now that he’s gone, it’s mine.

And now that it’s mine,
I can hear the music in it,

like the chime of a typewriter bell,
recognize that it’s breezy as a zephyr,

assertive as a chili pepper. The Z, I see
now, is fearsome as a cobra, swaying

to the music of a pungi—charming despite
the hint of danger down its sinuous spine.

*

Yvonne Zipter is author of the poetry collections The Wordless Lullaby of Crickets, Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound, The Patience of Metal (Lambda Literary Award Finalist), and Like Some Bookie God, the Russian historical novel Infraction, and the nonfiction books Diamonds Are a Dyke’s Best Friend and Ransacking the Closet. Her individual published poems are being sold in two repurposed toy-vending machines in Chicago, the proceeds of which support a local nonprofit organization.

Self-Portrait in a Shard of Glass by Yvonne Zipter

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Self-Portrait in a Shard of Glass
For Sukie

On the ground behind the pet store,
a piece of broken mirror shaped
like a scimitar blade. I bend to look at it.
Only my eyes, nose, and the rind
of my orange knit cap are visible,
my face cut in half, ear to ear,
my head circled by a halo of green
that bleeds down the blade to its tip.
On the heel end, a slice of blue sky,
bleached clear by sunlight. Not since
before they plucked that scrap of uterus
from my gut have I felt whole. Flaws
in the glass scrap like a wall of smoke
between me and the world render my eyes
unseeable, my cheek erased, my mouth
lost at the sharp edge of the shatter—
a semblance of me. But me, nevertheless.

*

Yvonne Zipter is the author of the poetry collections The Wordless Lullaby of Crickets, Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound, The Patience of Metal, and Like Some Bookie God. Her published poems are currently being sold individually in Chicago in two repurposed toy-vending machines, the proceeds of which are donated to the nonprofit arts organization Arts Alive Chicago. She is also the author of the nonfiction books Diamonds Are a Dyke’s Best Friend and Ransacking the Closet and the Russian historical novel Infraction. She is retired from the University of Chicago Press, where she was a manuscript editor.

Naiad by Yvonne Zipter

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Naiad

Those years when my love
was a water nymph, swimming

mornings, weekends, on her lunch
break, at Portage Park, the Y, or

the university, her skin and hair
faintly fragranced with chlorine—

her signature scent. For some,
it’s chocolate or oysters or

maybe figs. But give me
a whiff from a bottle of Clorox,

with its clean aroma, wholesome
as sheets flapping on a line

under a summer sun, and I’ll be
drowning in thoughts of love.

*

Yvonne Zipter is the author of the poetry collections Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound, The Patience of Metal (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist), and Like Some Bookie God. Her poems have appeared in numerous periodicals over the years, including Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, and Bellingham Review, as well as in several anthologies. Her published poems are currently being sold individually in Chicago in two repurposed toy-vending machines, the proceeds of which are donated to the nonprofit arts organization Arts Alive Chicago. She is also the author of the nonfiction books Diamonds Are a Dyke’s Best Friend and Ransacking the Closet and the Russian historical novel Infraction.

It’s So Incredibly Brave to Be a World Map, by Yvonne Zipter

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It’s So Incredibly Brave to Be a World Map,

knowing the answer to the question Whose
country is this anyway? is subject to change,

knowing that as soon as someone punctures
the four corners of your colorful cartograph

with thumbtacks and affixes you to some
classroom wall, the lines depicting borders

are apt to shimmer like road lines in heat,
a mirage of constancy, knowing that,

at any given moment, another Czech Republic
might decide to rebrand itself as Czechia,

knowing that almost as soon as your ink
has dried, you will become obsolete.

*

Yvonne Zipter is the author of the poetry collections Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound, The Patience of Metal (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist), and Like Some Bookie God. Her poems have appeared in numerous periodicals over the years, including Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, and Bellingham Review, as well as in several anthologies. Her published poems are currently being sold individually in Chicago in two repurposed toy-vending machines, the proceeds of which are donated to the nonprofit arts organization Arts Alive Chicago. She is also the author of the nonfiction books Diamonds Are a Dyke’s Best Friend and Ransacking the Closet and the Russian historical novel Infraction.