Brenda Coultas, from Poem Series

The Writing of An Hour

An Hourglass Running Fast

An hour of returning sweaters to drawers, of hanging blouses and of listening to thudding wet

clothes going in circles, agitated. Isn’t that the appropriate word? You have to agitate the clothes.

I stand by the spin cycle and I hear my partner’s phone ping.

Small farm table behind me, red legs and soft pine top. Looking at books in the morning. The

seal of the day torn off. Turn off devices to quiet the mind. I hate writing through the gauntlet. If

I am away from writing for long, the voices reform and say, “there are better uses of time than

making poems.”

Straw basket box handbag in red and white that I brought 100 miles north. Pocketbook from a

poet, silks and soft garments. And another poet gave me orange slippers from China, plastic

slides on wooden painted soles. I think of the givers and receivers, I know the provenance of

garments and objects in my writing room.

Dump out a plastic bag of early writings, all pasted together and pressed in folds, an accordion, I

read the accordion as a map and maybe there is a sentence that could be the root of something

larger and greener. The accordion of raw thought, of raw art. I write “you can do it” in childish

print. Pen mark of hesitation midway through and I tape a recused rift at eye level:

I didn’t come out for the stars

Meant to but too lazy to put on shoes. [hesitation period} and a jacket

And I know they will show up

As [handwritten correction] luminous lava [handwritten period inserted].

Glimpses strong enough for carrying on, yet barely make it to the end of writing hour. Here I am

facing a screen, shoes in hand, thinking of dinner.

The Hour of Making

The writing this morning begins with erasure, I delete the false starts, change gears, gaze beyond

the screen and onto objects on the desk and back.

Everything is closed and I am bored with the restraints of masks, of cooking, of tv and podcasts.

All the ways of filling space that people once filled. Inside my shelter, at the germy keyboard, a

random sentence hour ensures from a bag of fragments and I wonder if I can ever lengthen these

bits of thread.

“Dried beetles

Octagonal skylight

Lobotomy needle/ Nudity concealed by flyleaf/ Blue glow working up nerve or heat?

Flint locks, burnt buttons, buckles and coins

Garden petals in repose

In space the black void burst with color

Buried here, in this room under a pile, mummified with wild hair and parchment skin, skin

that turns to paper. Or what is written on the face.”

Riddles saved for later. I want to see “living room furniture in a ditch.”

And I mourn the tragedy of “The grandest house in a small town.”

Hard Clock Hour

Flashback of factory clock: the punch in and punch out. Waiting for the ticks of minute hand.

The boss calls you into the office, admonishes you for standing by clock or for low production,

you stamped out 600 parts an hour, 200 parts short. Did you come back drunk from lunch and

operate heavy machinery?

Did I get drunk instead of logging time at keyboard?

Neaten my nails to write, neaten my clothes, straighten shoes, roll up rug.

Season the beans, season the room, the desk lamp, the line of pens, the tangle of paper clips, and

the lion’s breath seasons the broth. I put my face on and begin to write. The lion’s fallen hairs

became felt and made a useful hat. The lion’s paws warmed my shoulders like a weighted

blanket and the lion’s snore a lullaby. The purr of the lion’s pleasure pleased me. The lion has

its own room and its own meat. It wears a red coat in cold rain and greets me at the door.

Nudges, rubbing nose against my human legs. A truce between us. We had come to accept each

other, both locked inside a pleasant enough house, but we want out. And we push at the cracks,

push at the trap, like the little mouse who made itself even littler, who banged and banged

against metal and squeezed out in reverse, fled the trap of the unknown with only its nose for a

guide, the nose that lead it into the trap. Trap of kindness.