Meriwether Clarke
Meriwether Clarke is a poet and adjunct professor living in Los Angeles, CA. Her work has recently been see in Juked, Memorious, The Journal, and Salt Hill, among others.
CHANGING HOUSES
The dog’s room
became an empty room, he took
her with him when
he left. The red armchair, too,
and the picture of the cabin in the woods
that hung beside our bed.
Snow fell there, it was someplace
cold and I wonder why
he wants to remember that--
frozen air and long, lonely nights
where the wind is a cage.
He left the piano, for which
I am glad, though I don’t
know how to play. The records stayed too-
Horowitz, Paderewski, Gould.
On nights when it’s just
too quiet, I put the music on
and turn it up high. If the neighbors ask
I’ll say it’s someone, practicing, I’ll say
Of course I’m not alone.
SUMMER
The shore rocks were teeth
I sat on, hoping for sea glass
to wash ashore. The youngest
were pointed, still, and
sharp along the edges.The oldest
were flat and smooth,
soft inside, though no one but
old fishermen believed me.
As I waited, they told me stories
of women with hair of sand, women with
fins for feet, their women, their
father’s women, all praying
for boats to come home before
they grew to only love night
when the waves
disappeared into black.
Then, all that stung
was their hands, raw and red
from trying
to catch
the salted breeze.
BELLS
Even the word
is something
to hold onto.
Slippery and
round
as the dome
itself. Hollow, though,
she is not
convinced. Sound is not
hollow, no more
than her
breasts, her waist,
those circles
he fixates
on, as if
any one could
hope to make them
ring,
make them sing
any sweeter
than the
lips on her
face, always so weary
of not being heard.