Many literary mothers, a violin case, and a woman on the subwa

1. Many Literary Mothers, A Violin Case, And A Woman on the
Subway
Dorothea Lasky
I first started writing poems when I was 7 because I couldn’t
sleep and needed
something to do and poems were the things I could write to, to
an unnamed friend in the
nighttime (sometimes her name was Molly, sometimes her name
was Blue, sometimes
she was people I knew).
But when I was 14 and 15, I gave up on poetry. I don’t think it
was that I had lost the
word. It was as if I simply closed the door to the voice that
spoke to me. I had severe
depression and had lost the ability to care if I talked to my
unnamed friend in the night
anymore. I think she stopped caring about me, too.
When I closed the door as a thing on poetry, it was Sylvia Plath
who woke me up. I was
in 10th grade, and my poetry teacher, Marjorie Stelmach (a
great poet herself), had us
do a close-reading assignment and I had to write on Plath’s
poem, “Purdah.”
When I read her words, they were like a great invitation. Come
back to us, Poetry said. I
felt welcomed to the word again and told Mrs. Stelmach that I
was a poet, struggling to

2. find the road to words again. She and Plath opened the way. I
never stopped writing
poetry since. Sylvia Plath and Marjorie Stelmach are my
Literary Mothers.
Since I was born I have had a relationship to the female
generations past who made
me, to the mothers that ebb on in layers in the dark belly of the
afterlife. I was named
after my grandmother, Dorothea, on my mother’s side. She died
3 years before I was
born. In so many ways, I have always waited to be and not be
her—having her name
especially made her always one of my Literary Mothers.
In her life, one of her great accomplishments was that she was a
virtuoso at the violin.
She had much promise as a teenager and had even gotten a
scholarship to Juillard, but
was unable to go because she had to take care of her family in
the Depression. We had
two of her violins and as a child, I took the violin to mimic her.
I was never allowed to play her instruments, but sometimes my
mother would take them
out so that I could look at them. My mother is a wild artist, an
art historian, a collector of
objects—she taught me that you make a thing to give it away,
but that you collect the
things made by others as sacred talisman.
The inside of a violin case is usually a velvet, sometimes
different colors but usually a
dark burgundy wine velvet, lush, a wealthy color. One of her
violins was in a case that
was this traditional red. The other was in a case made up on the

3. inside of a golden
velvet. It was the more expensive one and added to its magic
was that the velvet on the
inside of its case was rare.
Perhaps I have spent this whole lifetime waiting to be the
golden velvet. No, I never
have been, but I wait. I wait to be. My grandmother and my
mother and the violin are my
Literary Mothers.
I first read Marina Tsvetaeva seriously nearly 15 years ago. It
was Dara Wier, a great
poet, one of the most important poetry teachers of my life, who
led the way to being a
poet with an openness and warmth, who showed her to me. It
was with Laura Solomon,
a real friend, a great poet, who I studied and taught poetry with
years ago, when I was
finding my voice (as we hate to say), that I read her.
When I read Marina Tsvetaeva, I realized I was full of a long
lineage of passionate
sisters who could withstand hell. Laura Solomon, Dara Wier,
and Marina Tsvetaeva are
my Literary Mothers. They sang to me:
We shall not escape Hell, my passionate
sisters, we shall drink black resins––
The other day I was going to give a poetry reading and I thought
of a poem Laura
Solomon put on a recording for me of Alice Notley reading a

4. poem about giving a poetry
reading. It lasted 15 seconds and went like this: All my life/
Since I was 10/ I’ve been
waiting to be in this hell here with you/ All I’ve ever wanted/
And still do
And then, after the mention of hell, Laura put a song on, the
recording by Amadou &
Mariam called “Senegal Fast Food,” which to me will always be
the feeling you have
when you decide not to die. Alice Notley and Amadou &
Mariam, you are my Literary
Mothers.
And the day I read myself in the poetry reading, when I was
getting ready to pick out my
colors to wear to the reading, I chose hot pink and black (kind
of boring) and then I
thought about a color to wear for my bracelets (I wear lots of
bracelets) and I chose
yellow.
And then I thought of a story of my mother and grandmother
wearing pink and yellow
together, even though you weren’t supposed to (who said so, I
don’t know), but that
they sometimes defiantly would do so.
So, I thought of them and I wore pink and yellow, and then
when I went on the subway
this woman sat next to me who said that, “Sorry, if this sounds
weird, but I am going to
Central Park today to marry myself and I think I was meant to
sit next to you because
those are my soul colors.”

5. Marry herself? I don’t know, but that’s kind of rad. So give me
another day and I will
wear the soul colors of a woman who is that way. Woman on the
subway, you are my
Literary Mother.
Right before I started writing poems, I would pray to all of the
great spirits in the
afterworld. Their essence seemed the ultimate benevolence, blue
and otherworldly.
Hopkins’ spring or the blue that is all in a rush. If I were sad, I
would cry in my bed, and
then I would feel their kind watery presence washing over me
and I would feel better.
The great spirits of the afterworld are my Literary Mothers.
The spirit of the golden velvet is a perfect cloud of water, the
generations of female
poets who know we are the kin. The golden velvet: She is my
greatest Literary Mother.
It is said that Anne Sexton kept living and writing as long as
she could so as to make a
path of violent voice for the ones yet to be who felt as she did. I
think of her and I keep
going, too.
Voice who calls to me, who says I should be brave and still be
here. Voice of
everything, you are my Literary Mother.
Recommended reading:
• Mary Jo Bang, Louise in Love

6. • Dodie Bellamy, The TV Sutras
• Lucie Brock-Broido, Stay, Illusion
• Octavia Butler, Wild Seed
• Kate Durbin, E! Entertainment
• Fanny Howe, Come and See
• Chris Kraus, Torpor
• Audre Lorde, The Black Unicorn
• Mina Loy, The Last Lunar Baedeker
• Bernadette Mayer, The Bernadette Mayer Reader
• Eileen Myles, Inferno (a poet’s novel)
• Maggie Nelson, Bluets
• Ariana Reines, Mercury
• Anne Sexton, Live or Die
• Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans
Dorothea Lasky is the author of ROME (Liveright/W.W.
Norton, 2014), as well as
Thunderbird, Black Life, and AWE, all out from Wave Books.
She is also the co-editor of
Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry
(McSweeney’s, 2013).
Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Poetry at Columbia
University’s School of the
Arts and can be found online at www.dorothealasky.com.
from: http://literarymothers-
blog.tumblr.com/post/89158017711/dorothea-lasky-on-
many-literary-mothers-a-violin

7. Oswego Outbreak Investigation
NOTE: The following resource was prepared for class use by
replicating portions of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention's (CDC), "Oswego - An Outbreak of Gastrointestinal
Illness Following a Church Supper: Student Guide" (CDC, n.d.),
except for the "Questions" section, with the understanding that
the CDC document is in the public domain and available for
educational use.
Background:
On April 19, 1940, the local health officer in the village of
Lycoming, Oswego County, New York, reported the occurrence
of an outbreak of acute gastrointestinal illness to the District
Health Officer in Syracuse. Dr. A. M. Rubin, epidemiologist-in-
training, was assigned to conduct an investigation. When Dr.
Rubin arrived in the field, he learned from the health officer
that all persons known to be ill had attended a church supper
held on the previous evening, April 18. Family members who
did not attend the church supper did not become ill.
Accordingly, Dr. Rubin focused the investigation on the supper.
He completed interviews with 75 of the 80 persons known to
have attended, collecting information about the occurrence and
time of onset of symptoms, and foods consumed. Of the 75
persons interviewed, 46 persons reported gastrointestinal
illness.
Clinical Description:
The onset of illness in all cases was acute, characterized chiefly
by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. None of the
ill persons reported having an elevated temperature; all
recovered within 24 to 30 hours. Approximately 20% of the ill
persons visited physicians. No fecal specimens were obtained
for bacteriologic examination.
Description of the Supper:
The supper was held in the basement of the village church.
Foods were contributed by numerous members of the
congregation. The supper began at 6:00 p.m. and continued until
11:00 p.m. Food was spread out on a table and consumed over a

8. period of several hours. Data regarding onset of illness and food
eaten or water drunk by each of the 75 persons interviewed [are
provided in the Excel "Oswego Line Listing Workbook" (CDC,
n.d.)]. The approximate time of eating supper was collected for
only about half the persons who had gastrointestinal illness.
Conclusion:
The following is quoted verbatim from the report prepared by
Dr. Rubin:
The ice cream was prepared by the Petrie sisters as follows:
On the afternoon of April 17 raw milk from the Petrie farm at
Lycoming was brought to boil over a water bath, sugar and eggs
were then added and a little flour to add body to the mix. The
chocolate and vanilla ice cream were prepared separately.
Hershey's chocolate was necessarily added to the chocolate mix.
At 6 p.m. the two mixes were taken in covered containers to the
church basement and allowed to stand overnight. They were
presumably not touched by anyone during this period.
On the morning of April 18, Mr. Coe added five ounces of
vanilla and two cans of condensed milk to the vanilla mix, and
three ounces of vanilla and one can of condensed milk to the
chocolate mix. Then the vanilla ice cream was transferred to a
freezing can and placed in an electrical freezer for 20 minutes,
after which the vanilla ice cream was removed from the freezer
can and packed into another can which had been previously
washed with boiling water. Then the chocolate mix was put into
the freezer can which had been rinsed out with tap water and
allowed to freeze for 20 minutes. At the conclusion of this both
cans were covered and placed in large wooden receptacles
which were packed with ice. As noted, the chocolate ice cream
remained in the one freezer can.
All handlers of the ice cream were examined. No external
lesions or upper respiratory infections were noted. Nose and
throat cultures were taken from two individuals who prepared
the ice cream.
Bacteriological examinations were made by the Division of
Laboratories and Research, Albany, on both ice creams. Their

9. report is as follows: "Large numbers of Staphylococcus aureus
and albus were found in the specimen of vanilla ice cream. Only
a few staphylococci were demonstrated in the chocolate ice
cream."
Report of the nose and throat cultures of the Petries who
prepared the ice cream read as follows: "Staphylococcus aureus
and hemolytic streptococci were isolated from nose culture and
Staphylococcus albus from throat culture of Grace Petrie.
Staphylococcus albus was isolated from the nose culture of
Marian Petrie. The hemolytic streptococci were not of the type
usually associated with infections in man."
Discussion as to Source: The source of bacterial contamination
of the vanilla ice cream is not clear. Whatever the method of the
introduction of the staphylococci, it appears reasonable to
assume it must have occurred between the evening of April 17
and the morning of April 18. No reason for contamination
peculiar to the vanilla ice cream is known.
In dispensing the ice creams, the same scooper was used. It is
therefore not unlikely to assume that some contamination to the
chocolate ice cream occurred in this way. This would appear to
be the most plausible explanation for the illness in the three
individuals who did not eat the vanilla ice cream.
Control Measures: On May 19, all remaining ice cream was
condemned. All other food at the church supper had been
consumed.
Conclusions: An attack of gastroenteritis occurred following a
church supper at Lycoming. The cause of the outbreak was
contaminated vanilla ice cream. The method of contamination of
ice cream is not clearly understood. Whether the positive
Staphylococcus nose and throat cultures occurring in the Petrie
family had anything to do with the contamination is a matter of
conjecture.
Note: Patient #52 was a child who while watching the freezing
procedure was given a dish of vanilla ice cream at 11:00 a.m. on
April 18.

10. Epi Curve
Addendum:
Certain laboratory techniques not available at the time of this
investigation might prove very useful in the analysis of a
similar epidemic today. These are phage typing, which can be
done at CDC, and identification of staphylococcal enterotoxin
in food by immunodiffusion or by enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA), which is available through the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
One would expect the phage types of staphylococci isolated
from Grace Petrie's nose and the vanilla ice cream and vomitus
or stool samples from ill persons associated with the church
supper to be identical had she been the source of contamination.
Distinctly different phage types would mitigate against her as
the source (although differences might be observed as a chance
phenomenon of sampling error) and suggest the need for further
investigation, such as cultures of others who might have been in
contact with the ice cream in preparation or consideration of the
possibility that contamination occurred from using a cow with
mastitis and that the only milk boiled was that used to prepare
chocolate ice cream. If the contaminated food had been heated
sufficiently to destroy staphylococcal organisms but not toxin,
analysis for toxin (with the addition of urea) would still permit
detection of the cause of the epidemic. A Gram stain might also
detect the presence of nonviable staphylococci in contaminated
food.
Reference
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Oswego -
An outbreak of gastrointestinal illness following a church
supper: Student guide (Case No. 401-303).
https://www.cdc.gov/eis/casestudies/xoswego.401-
303.student.pdf
1

11. 3
Rubic_Print_FormatCourse CodeClass CodeAssignment
TitleTotal PointsPUB-540PUB-540-O500Oswego Outbreak
Investigation120.0CriteriaPercentage1: Unsatisfactory
(0.00%)2. Less Than Satisfactory (74.00%)3. Satisfactory
(79.00%)4. Good (87.00%)5. Excellent
(100.00%)CommentsPoints EarnedCriteria100.0%Epi
Curve10.0%Interpretation of epi curve is omitted.Interpretation
of epi curve is incomplete.Interpretation of epi curve regarding
average incubation period, source, and transmission is
summarized. There are minor omissions or
inaccuracies.Interpretation of epi curve regarding average
incubation period, source, and transmission is discussed. Some
detail is needed for accuracy or clarity. The narrative is
adequately supported.An accurate interpretation of epi curve
regarding average incubation period, source, and transmission is
presented. The interpretation is clear, well-supported, and
informative.Identification of Potential Infectious
Agents10.0%Potential infectious agents are not identified; or,
the potential infectious agents identified are not based on
incubation range and clinical symptoms.An attempt is made to
use incubation range and clinical symptoms to identify potential
infectious agents that could be responsible for the outbreak. The
narrative is incomplete.Incubation range and clinical symptoms
are generally applied to identify potential infectious agents that
could be responsible for the outbreak. An explanation is
summarized. Some support is needed.Incubation range and
clinical symptoms are applied to identify potential infectious
agents that could be responsible for the outbreak. The
explanation is adequate. Some detail is needed for accuracy or
clarity.Incubation range and clinical symptoms are correctly
applied to identify potential infectious agents that could be
responsible for the outbreak. The explanation for the findings is
well-supported.Oswego Outbreak (Evidence for outbreak, steps

12. required to investigate, application of steps to Oswego
event)20.0%The discussion on the Oswego event is
omitted.Qualifying criteria for why Oswego are considered an
outbreak, steps required to investigate an outbreak, and
application of these steps to the Oswego event are only partially
discussed.Qualifying criteria for why Oswego are considered an
outbreak, steps required to investigate an outbreak, and
application of these steps to the Oswego event are summarized.
Relevant information needed for each step to be successful is
generally used. There are minor omissions or inaccuracies.
Some support is needed.Qualifying criteria for why Oswego is
considered an outbreak, steps required to investigate an
outbreak, and application of these steps to the Oswego event are
discussed and explained. Relevant information needed for each
step to be successful is discussed. Some detail is needed for
accuracy or clarity.A clear explanation, including qualifying
criteria for why Oswego is considered an outbreak, steps
required to investigate an outbreak, and application of these
steps to the Oswego event is accurate and detailed. Relevant
information needed for each step to be successful is thoroughly
discussed. The narrative is organized and well-supported.Routes
of Transmission for Agent15.0%Possible routes of transmission
for the expected agent are omitted.Possible routes of
transmission for the expected agent are partially
discussed.Possible routes of transmission for the expected agent
are summarized. There are minor omissions or
inaccuracies.Possible routes of transmission for the expected
agent are discussed. Some detail is needed for accuracy or
clarity.Possible routes of transmission for the expected agent
are accurate and thoroughly discussed.Recommended Control
Measures for Prevention Levels15.0%Control measures are
omitted.Control measures are incomplete.A control measure for
each prevention level is summarized. The control measures are
generally based on findings. There are minor omissions or
inaccuracies.A control measure for each prevention level is
discussed. The control measures are based on findings. Some

13. detail is needed for accuracy or clarity.A control measure for
each prevention level is detailed and well supported.Thesis
Development and Purpose7.0%Paper lacks any discernible
overall purpose or organizing claim.Thesis is insufficiently
developed or vague. Purpose is not clear.Thesis is apparent and
appropriate to purpose.Thesis is clear and forecasts the
development of the paper. Thesis is descriptive and reflective of
the arguments and appropriate to the purpose.Thesis is
comprehensive and contains the essence of the paper. Thesis
statement makes the purpose of the paper clear.Argument Logic
and Construction8.0%Statement of purpose is not justified by
the conclusion. The conclusion does not support the claim
made. Argument is incoherent and uses noncredible
sources.Sufficient justification of claims is lacking. Argument
lacks consistent unity. There are obvious flaws in the logic.
Some sources have questionable credibility.Argument is
orderly, but may have a few inconsistencies. The argument
presents minimal justification of claims. Argument logically,
but not thoroughly, supports the purpose. Sources used are
credible. Introduction and conclusion bracket the
thesis.Argument shows logical progressions. Techniques of
argumentation are evident. There is a smooth progression of
claims from introduction to conclusion. Most sources are
authoritative.Clear and convincing argument that presents a
persuasive claim in a distinctive and compelling manner. All
sources are authoritative.Mechanics of Writing (includes
spelling, punctuation, grammar, language use)5.0%Surface
errors are pervasive enough that they impede communication of
meaning. Inappropriate word choice or sentence construction is
used.Frequent and repetitive mechanical errors distract the
reader. Inconsistencies in language choice (register) or word
choice are present. Sentence structure is correct but not
varied.Some mechanical errors or typos are present, but they are
not overly distracting to the reader. Correct and varied sentence
structure and audience-appropriate language are employed.Prose
is largely free of mechanical errors, although a few may be

14. present. The writer uses a variety of effective sentence
structures and figures of speech.Writer is clearly in command of
standard, written, academic English.Paper Format (use of
appropriate style for the major and assignment)5.0%Template is
not used appropriately or documentatio n format is rarely
followed correctly.Appropriate template is used, but some
elements are missing or mistaken. A lack of control with
formatting is apparent.Appropriate template is used. Formatting
is correct, although some minor errors may be
present.Appropriate template is fully used. There are virtually
no errors in formatting style.All format elements are
correct.Documentation of Sources (citations, footnotes,
references, bibliography, etc., as appropriate to assignment and
style)5.0%Sources are not documented.Documentation of
sources is inconsistent or incorrect, as appropriate to
assignment and style, with numerous formatting errors.Sources
are documented, as appropriate to assignment and style,
although some formatting errors may be present.Sources ar e
documented, as appropriate to assignment and style, and format
is mostly correct.Sources are completely and correctly
documented, as appropriate to assignment and style, and format
is free of error.Total Weightage100%
A Kentucky of Mothers
Dana Ward
Derek what’s Kentucky for you?
An orange rubber globe? A jagged blue shoe, Paducah-toed, &
heeled somewhere near eastern
Tennessee? A place with dirt in mouth & blood on hands &

15. prettiness all over in its undulance &
peaking. Where Marshall Allen’s lips & lungs began to kiss &
breathe. Where, through Wes
Unseld’s divinity of play, physical reality was altered by his
Balanchine. Where the laureateship of
Cassius Clay began, in the poem of changing his name to
Muhammad Ali. His tonal university of
butterflies that sting as those similes collapsed the float of
puncture into me.
“I’m so bad I make medicine sick.” he once said. Really that’s
as well as one can write.
But Derek, since you’re from there too, what is that place for
you, Kentucky?
I know that you can’t answer me this morning though the
golden-Sharpie’d Peyton you made me
keeps watch here while I type this down in our world. It’s
coke’d up nose still bleeds. So there’s
always some wilder night in the memory of the picture, an
invisible tincture of bumps for me,
awakening the implants in the archive of my body.
Fill its search field with some bluegrass. Press return.
Kentucky is mainly a myth I abide because I learned to love
inside its stories.
For me it’s a maternal place but not the mother-land.
It’s where my heart when it was young & small & lacked
impressions
took its wealthy shape in songful opulence

16. of birthdays.
Who were they? All these mothers who seem mothers to me
still?
My father, who mothered the concessions of mortality by dying
in my childhood, giving birth to
me in hospice care, two floors above the maternity ward where
my mom, eight years before, saw
me into the world.
So her of course. But she is where this poem’s going.
June, who was someone to watch over me, desirous of children
but childless, she & I lived in a
mutual surrogacy. She died with my mother as her daughter, & I
as her grandson, recipient of
doting forgiveness, flawed inheritor of her one conceptual
novel, consisting of the Golden Rule
repeated to infinity. Her being was the hotel in The Shining had
it been enlivened by impossible
benevolence instead. By which I mean she was so nice that it
was weird.
One year older than me, next door, there was Jessica, by whom I
was both brutalized & cherished.
She showed me how I was mere thing in the world, another doll
absorbing storms of affect. The
porcelain heart my other codlings yielded was for her an
invitation to explore just how much
cruelty could be managed before I ran off sobbing to more
empathetic mothers. Her tough love
was econ 101.

17. Then the Barry Manilow mother-hood records in the living room
which bore my dependence on
preposterous emotion & show. His nurturing colluded with the
neediness of children as it lived &
lives in me. It nursed some pleading chintz my art relies on
even now. Julie Andrews mom of me
as well when I go big & sweet to get my way.
Also the Ella Fitzgerald cassette in the Honda, the mother one
reveres. Pristine her voices feel for
how ebullience to gutter grief & every nuance in between was
waiting to be coaxed from the
material of life (I mean its music) if intelligence & discipline
were paid. To her I would remain a
disappointment, & she remained remote in all her generous
perfections.
Ft. Thomas where we lived, a nursery of whiteness, so plain in
being racist it was clear. You could
see the white & hateful core through every opaque surface.
These orders of transparency were
births in their malignancy, of what to be against in one’s
becoming. A feel for the structures of
division how we’re cut by race & class & sex so then The
Father in his local form of hoarding.
Chapman, Rex, who I loved with the fervor of a Bieber-ite, who
bore what’s called the ‘girl-ish
heart aflutter’ in my body. It beat its wings in frenzy as I
idolized him so. I wanted to cry like
Beatlemania when he dropped 25 on U of L his freshman year.
No one told me my performance
of idolatry was femme.
The boys who were my friends found me so weird in this I
wonder now if they thought making fun

18. of me redundant. Some of those boys were my mothers as well.
Blake so pretty, shy & duty bound. Jacob von Gunten. He
mothered sanity & keel, & too their
limits, revealing the harm of normed wellness in the bedtime
stories we told one another, 9 or 10
in bed together, mother & child & child & mother.
Geoff, the mother I would bury in his youth, though then, in the
time of his maternity, he gave me
life as if he’d stolen it from god on my behalf. His del ight &
his approval were my joy &
aspiration. His charms surpassed the mesmerism Orpheus
possessed, deployed in service of
whatever’s endless lulz. He had some Mary Poppins & the rarest
bedside manner, Lake District
with his bandages & ornery soups for spirit. I loved him past
the tragedy of Oedipus in puppy
ways & chastity still later, sitting shiva with the future we were
going to spend together. His
mother love was funeral & teen. Now there’s nothing left to
know of its exhaustion.
Some mothers only last a season. Or a day. Or the life of the
party. There were only two more
mothers in Kentucky left for me.
The first was Allen Ginsberg, who arrived by way of that
cultural line I had followed from the
Beatles, on to Dylan where I found him, this sort of interesting
guy at Bob’s side, sensing he’s the
guru but not being quite sure how. Already invested in what I
took to be the outlaw canon, Allen
was skeleton key, giving not only his art, poetics clear in DIY

19. articulation, & too the queer in
factuality, modernity, it’s cosmopolitan glory, experimental &
demanding no more fealty to its
aspects than what could be accessed for our survival, & the
suddenness of vision & of pleasure.
Blood & shit were on the table near a leaky Hebrew Bible. The
incense stick puffed Leaves of Grass
in scented smoke around the angel head of someone who would
soon be in his bed & plainly
naked as the ethics of the muse should govern flesh. His
motherhood awakened all my senses.
He asks a wild question of himself there in Kaddish, musing
over whether he should try & do it
with his mother, right there in the infirmary, just to see how
that would feel. You laugh because it’s
funny then you laugh like woah, it’s heavy. He seems really free
inside his mind! It’s excessive yet
from him it sounds so healthy. It’s why so many people have
him as a mother they remember. So
many inhibitions shattered—for the fervor & the humor of the
quest.
Geoff & I went to see him give a reading in Kentucky, in
Lexington, in 1993. Geoff was no longer
my mother by then. We were both still Allen’s children en
extremis. He read & sang & chanted.
We were joyous gathered round him, beamed & smiled in our
nearness to the body of our
mother, needy, anxious to go even closer still.
So Geoff & I stood there, in the long line with our books,
waiting for his dedication’s kiss upon
our pages, swooning sons with steadfast City Lights. I went
first, & Allen asked my name, but
barely met my gaze. He lingered though with Geoff, meandered

20. in his beauty, these two mothers of
mine, flirting in a way that felt like watching boyish pulp of the
initial batted eyes behind my
body’s constitution. They seemed to wink & dare & coo for
several hours.
Geoff rejoined me & he showed me his inscription. Allen had
addressed him as angel boy &
done a little drawing. What’s more he’d invited Geoff to his
hotel! We were seventeen. We hadn’t
been this far away from home, not by ourselves, ever before in
our whole lives. 90 minutes by car
from our parent’s front doors. We were fucking Sam & Frodo in
the morning of the ring, two
bumpkins all mixed up in grander magic.
Now, which mother were we going to run to?
It's easy to forget what blameless ignorance can be because our
culture calls it innocence
instead. That heaps too much untrammeled snow & later says
it’s sullied though the dirt was there
from jump, & time refines it. Thusly unrefined I’m just not sure
we understood. I know we didn’t
understand what little sex we’d had, our bodies or the bodies of
our lovers, young women lost in
their way too, though smarter. All we knew was hard-sold dude
lore told through locker room &
porn. “Big Titties” or whatever. Baseball diamond of erotic
pilgrim’s progress.
But we believed good heartedness would certify desire in
eternity. The plebiscite of seekers was the
carnival of night. The orgy a fait accompli. Now one of our

21. moms maybe wanted to fuck! She was
making good on bodied promise. Here was the gift in the flesh.
We were incandescent with the
truth of her, & shared her honor there between us. Precious
drug.
First let me say we just went home. I don’t think we knew, in
the end, at least not for sure, what
the invitation meant for Geoff. If he’d gone to find out then
where was I supposed to go? All we
did we had to do together. Mom’s response to Geoff’s allure had
made it true as cosmic fact. So we
departed with our intuitions written in the stars. We needed
nothing else for our fond adventure
equation.
But now? I think it’s a shame. We did it wrong. Geoff should
have offered up his pretty body to
our mother. We should have offered her one body. Ours.
Because us having two of them was waste of healthy matter.
What I should have done was gone &
donated my organs, then poured my excess ooze inside of
Geoff; hold your nose & open up you fucking
corpse my heart’s obsessed with, then made my way as slime
into the womb-less space where I began as
embryo of who I was that day. Then he could have carried me in
utero to Allen, & whatever he
wanted would be his. Maybe lots of soulful talk for hours of
suspense, & then to be joined in soft,
passionate kisses, tingling caresses, dissolutions of the flesh at
heights, mysteries, pleasures,
trembling heavens, nerves made crushed velvet of pre-cum &
spit. Pillows then, & slumbers, & a
cigarette to meet our raptured soreness in the dawn.

22. The reproductive algebra of “Veracruz” obtained. A child
emerged from the absence of encounter.
A darling little thing no more than myth in its material. As real
as baby Allen was the day that he
was born. Like the make-believe the commonwealth Kentucky is
a passion play of mists & bloods
& poverty & mountains. A baby like a state of love & nothing in
its mother.
The three of us, by never fucking in Kentucky, made a child.
Sometimes I always wonder where
she’s gone.
She’s in my ear as Cymbeline to listen for her nothing ghost
whose youth has soaked the alphabet
with music.
But what’s the alphabet to music if it’s not a dead imaginary
child people think they’re so in touch
with
one another. What’s the internet, the people all keyed up on
boards which really are a boneyard of
such offspring of our fantasies efficiently arranged from Q to
M.
Because this isn’t writing. This is typing.
& my mother’s an extraordinary typist by the way. The one who
held me in her body, near her
body, kept me fed.
I’ll say more about her soon. What’s deep & simple?

23. But now I’ll say I’d nearly left the nest. My last Kentucky mom
would see me off into the poem. &
though I met her long before I met Allen, the realization didn’t
come until much later. That she,
more than anyone else, was the matriarch that opened writing’s
world.
O Veronica Sawyer, my mother. I was watching Heathers all the
time. O Veronica you cared for me
so well. Your affected monocle, the way you dove into your
journal, an avenging angel coming
back from hell at 3pm, flown into acerbic pique by spiritual
distress.
You were young to have been caring for a son three years your
junior. You were little more than 17
yourself.
Lord I tried to mirror you. I failed. Yet there you were. As
reliable as emptiness of metric on the
testing day. As sharp as #2’s are for the throat.
I loved the way your pen was always pregnant with your sword.
All that social cruelty that your soul
could not abide. All that degrading service you’d performed in
employ of those tyrants who like
school days come & go with common agonizing sameness.
You could see the beauty of the omelet life could be! Soon
you’d be persuaded to the side of
breaking eggs. But tactical revolt was not enough for your dumb
boyfriend. He was charming
though, & sexy, so your heart kept coming back. With
reservations. Although things kept getting
hotter. Sex & crime make up the Reece’s cup for teens who hate
the world. Everyone should eat

24. up all they can!
But you opened up a breach old suave JD did more like blow.
He was snorting up the Less Than
Zero void & killing children. His moralizing started sounding
hollow. You knew that you had to
get out. When you faked your own suicide I’d never been more
proud. I’d never seen my mother
hang & smile.
Then after all the shit went down, & you blew off his finger, &
he blew his body to bits on the
steps, you came home bathed in soot & charring ashes of his
body, that red ribbon spider cracked
your eyes they were so blood shot, & your gaze was like the
feel of someplace years of war had
changed, there were ruins in it, smoke & haze, cadavers. We
watched Breakfast Club with Martha
Dunnstock twice that night. I’d never seen so many human
tears.
But really as my mother…it’s this writing thing you did, this
fall & swoop into your journal, your
motion made me think the heart’s confession’s were more real
because they fronted, in their
littleness, designs against the world as it is premised on
unerring domination.
The ruling cliques, the system’s ribbon gathering their locks &
every two or four Novembers it’s
some other fucking Heathers, other warlords, other bankers,
mainly dudes.
But it’s that way you said ‘dear diary’, like nausea was pining

25. in intelligent exhaustion for the
words that thrummed against them in the body of your mind.
That sound was how I felt those years.
It’s kicked me out of the house. The house of one feeling for
developmental shelter. I started
writing a novel. So I became the mother of a character,
Veronica essentially, although I had named
her Amanda. In my novel she murdered a teacher she hated.
Then ran away from home to live in
gladness in the basement of a woman she befriended. The
woman was a poet who was making love
for fun, stealing wine that she could pay for just because, &
terrorizing her small town with that
illegal mixture of the female & Rimbaud.
The book was called Never Go Home.
I wrote the thing on legal paper, longhand, during class, & then
at night in bed, Sweet Valley
High. I laugh but this was pre-Columbine. Sometimes I think if
I were in school now & writing
that? Shit. That kid might really be arrested!
God my poor real mom she would have died.
But people say her eyes contain a twinkle they believe in. When
they see it they don’t need a leap
of faith. Although I was surrounded by hate, as the common
disasters claimed our town as most
are claimed, my mother barred that city with a pivotal insistence
so the heart could turn away to
meet new thought. My life is when critique feeds from the auras
of her care, a violet glow that begs
negation as a sharpening to yellow, or a deepening to red that

26. means ‘the Real’ is not so cool that
it is spared a mother’s love in its redoubt. The way these colors
drink me is my sight. I have been
inspirited to tessellate their spectrograph by singing so the 4th
dimension flutters in their plane,
the 3rd may bell the heart & move the blood to hear a ring, to
honor lights in eyes that shine
against imprisoned worlds & for her merry life of grief that
rudder’d mine.
For her my admiration & my love just can’t be typed.
These are my Kentucky mothers then. The mothers of my heart.
& I’ve been reading that Yepez book on Olson, The Empire of
Neomemory, & good lord it is
astonishing. He talks about how Olson attempts to construct an
alter-patriarchy on the ruins of an
already false one. Part of his martial, nationalist project of
mythos. Stacking universe & state &
self on Pound-carved Plymouth Rock of cock & balls.
Yepez says, in essence, Olson’s thing is an elaborate psycho-
social misprision. No less interesting
because of that, & perhaps a great deal more. It’s quite
revealing.
I thought about that some while I was writing this, & wondered,
how might we construct a
matriarchy of the world instead? God knows for truth &
world’s sake that we should.
But what of this. What I’ve been writing. How to think it?

27. Many gendered micro-lineage,
the matriarchs of my Kentucky heart?
To narrate one huge part of one’s small life in one small state in
one dead country so besotted by
oblivion, through mothers.
But is ‘mother of’ precise?
Should I say ‘singers of’ instead?
The heart wants what it wants I guess
those metaphoric light years of itself are all it has—its flesh &
blood
its Moulin Rouge
its basic make-up
doctored St. Theresa reputation & a problem like Maria for the
discourse it keeps
photo bombing like the sound of music.
Alive
in some pretty dead hills.
O god save all the many gendered-mothers of my heart, & all
the other mothers, who do not need
god or savior,
our hearts persist in excess of the justice they’re refused.

28. & yo. I have nothing like Olson’s ambitions. But my source in
varied care is something real in my
song’s story. The way we have our source in locks & open
endings, still
there was this thing I meant to say
way back at the beginning
of how the heart is dreamed by idiom
then seeps from out of speech & song to wet the feeling’s
thought
Bullfinch’s water on the brain
of love & when the floodplain dries
the myths have drowned alive in their reality of being
to haunt our body’s opera as the stories of our life.
That is no exaggeration
it’s just a penny on the ground
it’s just the repertoire in flight toward ever newer immolations,
disembowelments
reunited
holding hands beside the carousel again
then grab your bag

29. how much alike & not it is the others there gone round & round
how much it’s like a plastic pastel steed
the way its piping up & down
distinguished from the other inauthentic breathing
ponies by the magic’s fact that circulates between us
like an organ sound.
It doesn’t fit beneath our wounded breast
inside the mega-church bewitched
bewildered, bothered
Ella’s way.
It’s just a penny in the busker’s cup
& since you’ve heard it all before
she’ll sing her flawless analects unmoored in static changes.
She writes the songs
she writes the songs she is the heart like all of us are driving
nowhere
spending someone else’s hard earned pay.

30. But there’s this thing I meant to say
way back at the beginning
that Kentucky is the place I found my heart’s real princess soul.
I don’t know.
Does that sound strange?
Perhaps it’s
pretty easy to
explain…
My heart’s eyes are closed when I am walking in the sun, &
they dream the way I look in my
delight. I’m a princess then & I have every thought inside my
head, as well as none. I am neither
regal nor belong to special blood, & I am simple in my costume
of a levitating pink, cheap in
clothes a royal wouldn’t dress a beggar’s wound in, smiling ear
to ear as if I’d nursed on Purple Rain
& smack, then set out for my walk of painless warmth. There’s
liquidity of sex moving in between
my legs. In desire I’m for anyone & I belong to nothing. I
commune with bluebirds in the
customary way because my singing is so kind & perspicacious. I
am free, never once having seen
my own image, existing in my mind’s eye as a portrait of
forgivenesses received & that’s my
calculous of body. Effervescence wanders in my system as the
animating spa of matter lacking
prime directive, bathing all sensation for an amplifying
mildness my being is reliant on as empty,

31. tender joke. The world is all this is in its exquisiteness & filter,
the details I receive are simply
dialect, & murmuring, a tease made of fulfillment & release. I
am beaming absolution in my tulle
& my satin, as light means only light has been for pointlessly
rejoicing. Shade is little more than
night that sun sings for completeness through the liberated
objects near my motion. I waltz to
meet the billowed bell my shadow is, for sleeping, as sun sings
Honolulu nights of me, & endless
births. & what was harm? & what was loss? As if ‘to love’
meant never knowing either one.
But my heart’s eyes are open when I’m walking in the sun, & I
see me as I am here in
estrangement from the facts of all who have in our conditions
lost & sang, less known than not &
social, for my truth of constitution as it’s made.
But still. What is that princess soul so real in heart’s release?
It’s the absolute mirage that private happiness is seeking in its
adequate contrivance of a figment.
It is happiness more actual than blood & making good on its
reality by offering myself to me in
this authentic picture.
Perhaps it’s all my mothers in their elegance & heavens.
Perhaps it is my mother when she smiles in my mind & her
contentment comes to life beyond its
borders.

32. Perhaps it is my daughter’s joy when I have mothered well.
Perhaps it’s institution in a pretty dissipation.
Perhaps she is an emissary born past all of this, & come to tell
through feeling how the locks will
die in swells of interpenetrating being not yet thought.
Perhaps the heart’s the princess in its picture so impoverished it
is fine to pump in rhythms that
the blood holds out for that
redistribution & no center in our nourishment of motions.
Then the world goes all pre-code so free & post to seethe with
titillation.
Of course auto-correct sees ‘total ruin’
as if to even speak of freed arousal were an error in the
language
mythic imperfection that my princess is in speech.
Our love is god.
It’s really touching.
Sometimes I think that I’m just in the way.
So
Derek, anyone

33. what do you say?
Is it good to call these others as my moms the way I have? Is it
care, & if it is, have I gave honor
in my song?
My heart tells me surely they’re the mothers of its fact.
So many others & in our world with its infinite oppressions
who can know what honor is
or love?
Perhaps it’s like Kentucky in the way the state contains so many
cities of the world, having stolen,
for its country places, several famous names.
Look at a map of the state:
There’ s Florence.
There’s London.
There’s Warsaw,
& Paris.
There’s Alexandria,
& Athens.
There’s Versailles.
In Kentucky here’s what people say: “Versails.” The twang
distorts the reference to the opulence &

34. splendor. It makes it into someplace else that’s also just as real.
Mother
when the heart announces cities of its birth
in twangs which mean it’s from such
storied places.
The way a child of Versails may seem a gremlin of Versailles
or a princess-man who’d die
to sing his heart out.
A princess of Versails may be a child of Versailles of care
a princess-man alive
to sing his heart out.
& he may live to see the world’s Versailles be crushed & freed
& him
with them
& him with them
& him with them