A Suite of Poems
Abe Louise Young
Dash
And I do love to run fast – and hide away
from them all: here in dear Susie’s bosom
O Emily D., you knew
riding the dash was like lashing
one log to the next, a river raft for feeling--
was like lying down on a blanket in the field with Susan,
time-stealing, kissing, tinkering with iambics,
tickling her with your feet--
was joining everything equally, one long breath
in the transport of her bud--
the dash let you keep writing and talking
while part of you slipped away, planning--
a black cake with a folded note
sent down in your pulley and basket,
a lavender, borage, and parsley bouquet
embroidered on her handkerchief,
a long silence before a night unveiling – tracing,
taking off the white linen dress, a rainstorm, her hand in
heat lightning, lacing up your naked back--
Title divine, is mine.
The Wife without
the Sign –
Note: Quotations from Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (Paris Press)
from them all: here in dear Susie’s bosom
O Emily D., you knew
riding the dash was like lashing
one log to the next, a river raft for feeling--
was like lying down on a blanket in the field with Susan,
time-stealing, kissing, tinkering with iambics,
tickling her with your feet--
was joining everything equally, one long breath
in the transport of her bud--
the dash let you keep writing and talking
while part of you slipped away, planning--
a black cake with a folded note
sent down in your pulley and basket,
a lavender, borage, and parsley bouquet
embroidered on her handkerchief,
a long silence before a night unveiling – tracing,
taking off the white linen dress, a rainstorm, her hand in
heat lightning, lacing up your naked back--
Title divine, is mine.
The Wife without
the Sign –
Note: Quotations from Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (Paris Press)
Working notes
I love love love Emily Dickinson’s dash, in part because it expresses a connection without hierarchy. What’s on one side of the dash is equal to what’s on the other side. The dash connects things fluidly, which makes it erotic. It has to come straight from the gut, or else it would waver and be a tilde, or shriek and fall and be a comma.
Say there’s a steep drop-off in stanzas that lead us to a thrilling silence or a question—dashes don’t disclose how we should analyze the link but say we best get busy co-conspiriting. Maybe hidden love instructs us the same way. The love that Emily Dickinson and her sister-in-law Susan Huntington Dickinson wrote decades of passionate letters about intimacy we might now call lesbian or queer. But the dash isn’t one long mathmatical solution or fused equal sign. It’s got momentum, urgency, movement. It can speed up time or slow it down. It wants to touch something on the other side pretty badly.
Say there’s a steep drop-off in stanzas that lead us to a thrilling silence or a question—dashes don’t disclose how we should analyze the link but say we best get busy co-conspiriting. Maybe hidden love instructs us the same way. The love that Emily Dickinson and her sister-in-law Susan Huntington Dickinson wrote decades of passionate letters about intimacy we might now call lesbian or queer. But the dash isn’t one long mathmatical solution or fused equal sign. It’s got momentum, urgency, movement. It can speed up time or slow it down. It wants to touch something on the other side pretty badly.
Bad vocab
I have anti-trust
for men or women
who write 85% love poems
and use the word collarbone
with the words butterfly or sip,
who describe their new girlfriend’s
breasts as tawny and
their ex-wives’ vaginas
as muscular or long
Seriously, fuck any poet
who describes
her ex-wife’s
vagina
at all
for men or women
who write 85% love poems
and use the word collarbone
with the words butterfly or sip,
who describe their new girlfriend’s
breasts as tawny and
their ex-wives’ vaginas
as muscular or long
Seriously, fuck any poet
who describes
her ex-wife’s
vagina
at all
Working notes
I went to two different poetry readings in one week. Both were big names from out of town, both queer women (unrelated to each other). When they both read poems openly mocking their former lovers’ bodies, I felt like feminism’s DNA got a few broken strands. I wanted to run up to the podium and knock them on the head but instead I wrote a poem to break it down, a kind of cheat sheet for those moments.
Transgenerational
Offenders can spot us
in a sea of children:
the smell of sweet saltwater hope
and hidden fear sweat
disguised as pair bonding
My cousin, she often had lice
and never checked her reflection
in the mirror
I was a small filly with a flashing
red light: already broken in
Mom couldn’t tell
the carpenter not to take us
back into the shed, the shed,
the shed, the shed, the shed
where everything happened
I would kill to forget
And even before his gym teacher
fucked him, I’m sorry,
my brother was a child
burning in dry ice
Mom watched from the kitchen
dissociative, not equipped
to interrupt, whatever happened,
her own shed in the way,
DNA encoded
from her first abuser braiding her hair before each time--
—but please note:
My lesbianism has absolutely
nothing to do with any of this
and if you suggest it does, I’ll cut you
out
in a sea of children:
the smell of sweet saltwater hope
and hidden fear sweat
disguised as pair bonding
My cousin, she often had lice
and never checked her reflection
in the mirror
I was a small filly with a flashing
red light: already broken in
Mom couldn’t tell
the carpenter not to take us
back into the shed, the shed,
the shed, the shed, the shed
where everything happened
I would kill to forget
And even before his gym teacher
fucked him, I’m sorry,
my brother was a child
burning in dry ice
Mom watched from the kitchen
dissociative, not equipped
to interrupt, whatever happened,
her own shed in the way,
DNA encoded
from her first abuser braiding her hair before each time--
—but please note:
My lesbianism has absolutely
nothing to do with any of this
and if you suggest it does, I’ll cut you
out
Working notes
I had scraps of different poems and tried to Frankenstein them together. It was ugly until the final, sharp insight at the end arrived. Then I understood why all those things wanted to go together on the page.
Thesis defense
You need to choose
between using your ands or
your ampersands,
he said at the final critique
& climactic finale
of our funded years together.
It’s like being good at embroidery:
you don’t want anyone to see messy stitches.
I fingered my hem, stuttered,
but aren’t and and ampersand two
different words
with different bodies?
And is dependable, a workhorse, strides
upright and humble,
offers androdgynous quiet
support.
&, on the other hand, lounges
in deep cleavage, strolls
& fucks loudly, holds
each arm out for lost
words to grab onto.
And can be a perfect,
tiny brass safety pin,
but badass bitches
like ampersand
are never invisible
stitches.
between using your ands or
your ampersands,
he said at the final critique
& climactic finale
of our funded years together.
It’s like being good at embroidery:
you don’t want anyone to see messy stitches.
I fingered my hem, stuttered,
but aren’t and and ampersand two
different words
with different bodies?
And is dependable, a workhorse, strides
upright and humble,
offers androdgynous quiet
support.
&, on the other hand, lounges
in deep cleavage, strolls
& fucks loudly, holds
each arm out for lost
words to grab onto.
And can be a perfect,
tiny brass safety pin,
but badass bitches
like ampersand
are never invisible
stitches.
Working notes
I love the ampersand as a word/symbol. Going to graduate school for poetry was a conflicted time for me. I had previously fled a Ph.D. program where a professor had tried to force me into bed with him. When in a new MFA program, a professor told me to stop using ampersands unless I wanted poems to seem frilly and girly. I reacted with a level of anger disproportionate to the discussion and claimed the ampersand as a feminist totemic ligature.
About the author
Abe Louise Young was born in New Orleans, LA and lives now in Austin, TX where she writes, teaches, and leads writing workshops. She's the author of two chapbooks of poetry and several guides for social justice educators. Visit her at www.abelouiseyoung.com
These poems are from Heaven to Me, a chapbook published by Headmistress Press in 2016.
These poems are from Heaven to Me, a chapbook published by Headmistress Press in 2016.