I Expect You from the West and Wait
I expect you from the west and wait.
Is it freedom from or of? In every way I
Wait,
and then you come.
You come as clouds come, you accumulate
as confusion
on the horizon, ten white
turbines turning
windspeed to lamplight, by which I read
of Ruth
amid the corn. (You come as corn
comes, up. You move my sad heart
from solitude to solitude—reading lines, looking up
as gods do, as guards do
too.) From a distance a siren comes swinging a red light
around the silence of the room.
I Wore the Dress
way out past its
usefulness.
I said dress I meant
body. I am thinking
with my
body of
the beauty of dying
tulips. Specifically
the rigor
in the final
forms—
there’s a loose
ness there,
in the stiffening
mess, a letting
go of green, a
shrugging up
of yellow. Like any
thing, they resist
description,
though the failure
first
is one of attention—
I carry them
from room to room.
The tulips,
I should trim their
shriveling wicks, but
don’t, as on days
with things
I do. I often
put off
shows of sentiment.
They make me
seem gruff, something
to say nothing of you.
—
Kary Wayson is the author of two collections of poetry—American Husband, from the Ohio State University Press, and Via Maria Materi, forthcoming from Burnside Review Press. Her poems have been widely published online and in print journals such as Crazyhorse, The Nation, Narrative, FIELD, and others, including the Best American Poetry and the Pushcart Prize anthologies. A 2012 The Stranger Genius Award nominee, Kary was Writer in Residence at the Hugo House from 2013—2015. She lives and works in Seattle.