What Feeds Us

By Diane Lockward

In these sparkling poems, Diane Lockward takes life as it comes and finds nourishment in it all: succulence of the peach, redolence of the pear, the "green grape of sorrow." I love these poems for their craft, sensuality and energy. Like high-wire acts of language and imagination, they almost leap in the air and come down again on the

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wind Books
• Release date: Sep 15, 2006
• ISBN: 9781947896109

Book preview

What Feeds Us

1

I brought the things I really need–

two books I love, a laptop,

clean white paper, a radio

in case I get lonely.

I packed two issues of The Hungry Mind Review

and just enough clothes.

Vitamins, ginger tea, a Gauguin cup.

I carried three almond croissants,

one of which I have already eaten.

II

I see a white chocolate chip

macadamia nut cookie in McNulty's Deli,

and right away I start thinking about Joe

and the story he told about Darlene,

the one girl he really could have loved back

in high school, Darlene with the long yummy legs,

when Joe was a short, fat-assed kid

with zits. He'd sit in the cafeteria

and watch luscious Darlene nibble

a cookie, and he'd dream that one day

she'd sashay to his table,

hold out her cookie like a valentine,

and he'd take that cookie, and Darlene's lips

would be all over it.

III

Imagine this: a world

where you could have as many

cheeseburgers and french fries

as you wanted, and the burger

would be the one you really wanted,

red onions, tomatoes, lettuce,

and Russian dressing, and the fries

would arrive hot from the fryer, extra crispy

the way you'd ordered them,

and you could pour on just as much salt

as you wanted and no one would say,

"Hey, that's too much salt—

what are you, a cow or something?"

And the catsup would come out

with one quick tap.

IV

Saturday my father drives us to his garden

out in the country because my brother and I

have been bad. Tall spikes

of gladiolus—peach, pink, purple, and white—

clusters of blossoms, row after row.

This time we do not

go into the garden. This time

we must clear the pile of rusty cans by the barn.

They reek of putrid water.

When we move them,

bees and wasps fly out.

If we cry, we'll be punished.

V

In his dream Darlene looks at Joe

the way Bergman looked at Bogart in Casablanca,

and she rises, she rises slowly,

slithers across the room,

and it is just as he'd dreamed it would be:

she holds out one of her yummy cookies,

as if making an offering to a god,

and Joe capitulates, no thinking time at all,

accepts the cookie into his mouth,

and it tastes like love. He nibbles

his way through firm, fine biscuit,

devours it chip by chip.

VI

At the flower show in Marlboro,

my father puts my name

on the flowers he grew

and enters them in the junior competition.

I receive a blue ribbon.

A man standing in front of the flowers says,

"Her father grew these gladiolus.

Who are they kidding?"

I find my father and begin to cry.

I try to find the right words

for shame, but all I can do

is repeat what the man said.

My father puts me in the car, leaves me there all day.

On the way home, he won't stop for food,

though I haven't eaten for