Poem of the Week: Patricia Davis

I Will Tell Her about Icarus

about his sister how she

       wanted

to be light

built night in her ribs

       cage strangled

the moon how a fine

down feathered her

       crept from sternum

to navel

how her foot

       bones ached

from the ground

when a woman

       is left with no

wings

when she forgets

       to counsel

her shadow

forgets to wind it

     out like lace

when the sky

is too blank too

     wide she might

make blades

of her shoulders

     raise ridges of bone

wait to fledge

Jesus humble

       poor despised

would be a woman

today obese in white pants

    butt dimples

pocking the fabric

Jesus crucified

       a woman

young pockets

and mind full of riches

     silent

angling a mirror

to see how her

     butt might be

taken

how hunger

     could make it

lovely bearable

vanish

     I will tell

my daughter so

she knows

     her body the body

of every woman

is sun

   seedbed

doorway

the body

     of every woman

is God

 

  

-Patricia Davis   

  

Used by permission.

  

  

Used by permission.

From The Water that Broke You (Finishing Line Press 2014)

  

Patricia Davis' poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Salt Hill, Spoon River Poetry Review, the Atlanta Review, Quiddity, Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology, and Smartish Pace, which named her a finalist for the Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. Her translations of Cuban poetry have been published in Spoon River Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol, and the New Laurel Review. 

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