A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
“Were you there, John David? Were you there?
Hearts soften for the boy
whose mother used a broom, John David,
to beat a sister dead.”
“Screw your pity, Ma’am, I don’t want your love.
I breathe only to survive.
Your heart goes out to me? My heart leapt, too,
when Ma beat Sister with a broom.”
“So, John David, you were at the scene.
What came next, John David?
How many lines with the refrain—
‘Beat-with-a-broom-till-dead?’”
“Marlene was one of many sisters.
I raped her with a broom.
Like me, they all had heartless mothers,
like you, I left them in the road.”
“Were you there when Ma raised the broom,
John David? Was she quick?
Was she strong? Were you there when Sister groaned?
How long will a woman take?”
“No time at all. Dear God—where were You,
the day I touched Marlene?
No time at all, and I left her by the road,
when I seen she didn’t breathe.”
“John David, a mother is the taproot,
but yours was prison bound
the day she snapped your root in two,
and your sister with a broom.”
“Screw your pity, Ma’am, I don’t want your love.
I breathe only to survive.
Your heart goes out to me? My heart leapt, too,
when Ma beat Sister with a broom.”
Zara Raab’s latest book is Swimming the Eel (David Robert Books, 2011). Her poems appear recently in The Evansville Review, River Styx, Crab Orchard Review, The Dark Horse and elsewhere. Her reviews and essays appear in Redwood Coast Review, Poet Lore, Raven Chronicles, and other journals. She grew up in rural Northern California, attended the University of Michigan for her Master’s, and now lives in Berkeley, California.