Nine Years! and, “Love Poem to Skins”

I began a short draft of this poem last night, 
writing along with my graduate workshop in hybrid
forms to a freewrite prompt in response to our 
reading of Claire Wahmanholm's Wilder. 

Sheila, who brought us the prompt, said something 
like: What would you miss if this whole apocalyptic
scenario came to pass? write a love poem to that.

The spirit of the prompt was to consider how,
in this world of steady disintegration
and ruin, there are still so many things
that we love in it. 

This morning, I returned to what I wrote
last night and felt like I needed to write 
one more part: the part that says stay,
hold on, not yet.

What have I learned, what am I still 
learning? That fear is probably the biggest 
obstacle to getting anything written. We all 
cycle through moments of exhilaration and anxiety,
confidence and paralysis; too much of either
can turn into writer's block. Fear goes by 
other names like impostor syndrome. And 
perfectionism. That what it is I crave 
that's met in part by coming to my daily 
writing is the promise of untrammelled time 
and space— which as all creatives know, 
is the ideal condition for dreaming and making 
art. For such as it is, it means that I want 
to create even a small space in my day, every 
day, to try to meet myself there; whatever 
might come out of it is already surplus, a gift.
 
Mostly, I'm very grateful for this sustaining 
practice; for this space that I've been able 
to share thanks to Dave Bonta; and for all
of you out there who might chance upon
these poems and read them.
 
*** 

Also, today marks my ninth year of writing 
(at least) a poem a day— which I guess calls for
some kind of celebration... So, how lucky 
was it that three officers from the ODU Asian 
Faculty Caucus stopped by my office just now
to present me with a bottle of champagne,
since apparently I am the first winner of
their champagne raffle???  

Here is a photo of Dr. Harry Zhang (Asian Faculty 
Caucus President, Professor in the School of 
Community Health Sciences) handing me the bottle 
of bubbly; we are flanked by Prof. Hua Liu (Geography) 
and Prof. Weiyong Zhang (College of Business).


















LOVE POEM TO SKINS

1.

After the pulp discards
the seed, after the flesh
gives me its sweet, its
golden yellow— I am 
an orb suffused by sun
in a grove among other skins
unplucked, as yet 
unnumbered.
Give me back
to myself, I say: 
as my mouth encloses
what disrobed itself
for me, as the knife
is cleaned and put away.

2. 

And sew me a shift
out of tatter and rue,
pearled with seed,
thinned with future 
use. You know how I
love a stitch
that sings 
with the voice 
of a hidden bird, 
so don't ply your leaf-
blower yet; don't start
on how trees have torn
their beautiful 
dresses to shreds.