Chinatown, Death, and Women
Laura Minor
Glazed duck bodies--
The closest thing to God I knew
were their white-blonde
bones, the scooped plastic
of Barbies gone wrong
poking through the charred flesh.
An old woman stopped her
village walk, and stood next to me.
And we stared, for some time,
at a shared miracle
hung in the fatty purses of animal.
Her face reminded me
of a hen’s egg. Her pearly eyes
jumped from their almond homes,
filled with the mirrored image
of death. The ball of her cheek
tightened into the back of a spoon,
and she grew old in front of me.
In the vast and spiritual void of my youth,
she became a circle of cracker, a Dixie cup
of wine, and the little white flame
that gowned me in salvation.
Her tired sneakers pushed her
skin into small puddles of ankle.
Her body shrank
into a dried ginger root bent over a cane
and her spine curved under her sweater
like a conch shell. She turned to me,
another pair of eyes smoldering in her skull,
rosaries strung across the night.
Listen to Laura read the poem here:
Glazed duck bodies--
The closest thing to God I knew
were their white-blonde
bones, the scooped plastic
of Barbies gone wrong
poking through the charred flesh.
An old woman stopped her
village walk, and stood next to me.
And we stared, for some time,
at a shared miracle
hung in the fatty purses of animal.
Her face reminded me
of a hen’s egg. Her pearly eyes
jumped from their almond homes,
filled with the mirrored image
of death. The ball of her cheek
tightened into the back of a spoon,
and she grew old in front of me.
In the vast and spiritual void of my youth,
she became a circle of cracker, a Dixie cup
of wine, and the little white flame
that gowned me in salvation.
Her tired sneakers pushed her
skin into small puddles of ankle.
Her body shrank
into a dried ginger root bent over a cane
and her spine curved under her sweater
like a conch shell. She turned to me,
another pair of eyes smoldering in her skull,
rosaries strung across the night.
Listen to Laura read the poem here:
Working notes
This actually happened. I remember being mesmerized by Chinatown when I first moved to New York from the Bible Belt. So there is a little bit of that cultural transition and awe. Juxtaposing this elderly woman's reverence for the death of anything under God humbled me. I wrote the poem on the way home. Subways are amazing for initial notes and revision: humanity is always in your face, staring you down, making you better.
About the author
Laura Minor is a Brooklyn-based poet, professor at the Pratt Institute, and singer/songwriter. Her work has most recently appeared in Dead Mule School of Poetry, Sixers Review, Lungfull, JMWW: A Journal of Quarterly Writing, and Mantis/Stanford University. She has released two critically-acclaimed records, and is currently working on a third record, forthcoming in Winter 2013. And she is currently working on a debut collection of short stories.
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.