April 27, 2016

Beth Gylys

APRON STRINGS

I have lied about my mother.
She never wore aprons,
regularly burned dinners.
A student and teacher
with four young kids, she broke
multiple watches—wound
too tight—made lists she’d forget
on countertops and tables.

Forever distracted, forever
rushing about with heels
in one hand, a baby in the other,
who could blame her
for not meeting us at the door
with a hug and a cookie?

Number-cruncher, maker
of money, a modern woman
before the phrase was de rigueur,
my mother opened doors
in business and in solitude.
She would shape our lives
forever by leaving us alone.

from Rattle #51, Spring 2016
Tribute to Feminist Poets

__________

Beth Gylys: “I began to self-identify as a feminist while an undergraduate during the ’80s when I took several courses, which would now have been labeled ‘Women’s Studies’ courses. The women faculty I was drawn to and who taught those classes were first-wave feminists and they (the women and the courses) had a tremendous impact on me. I read Erica Jong, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Anne Sexton, and Adrienne Rich. Even before that, though, I had a feminist sensibility. While raising four children, my mother pursued a master’s degree and worked full time. She shaped my belief that women should not be defined only by their relationships. I write about any number of subjects, and I hope as a feminist, my poetry complicates my/our understanding of women.”

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February 8, 2015

Beth Gylys

LEVELS OF SHIT OR THOM TILLIS REJECTS GOVERNMENT REGULATION

Winters, the round brown
balls of manure would
fall steaming in untidy piles,
the horses unperturbed,
their noses in a bucket of grain,
or grazing the dusty floors
of their stalls, simply lifted
their tails and let loose.
Later, those same stones,
frozen, thrown well and hard
might have shattered
someone’s window. It was easy
to trip on one, random rolled
into the barn aisle: innocent
icy rocks of shat grain we shoveled
or pitchforked into wheelbarrows,
dumped in a pile, their fragrance
diminished in the subzero temperatures,
though the mountains we’d raise
before the tractor hauled them away
were impressive. The horses
continued to eat and excrete,
and we kept scooping. We didn’t worry
what came out of assholes.
We recycled that shit. Something
now I can’t imagine as I sit
watching this screen, and it comes
from another hole, with no way
to pile or pass along or diminish.

Poets Respond
February 8, 2015

[download audio]

__________

Beth Gylys: “Early this week Thom Tillis claimed that he didn’t mind if Starbucks no longer followed a government regulated mandate that restaurant employees wash their hands after using the bathroom. Tillis believes in a self-regulating market and said ‘as long as a restaurant puts up a sign letting people know they no longer follow the mandate, the market will take care of that problem.’ He thus undermined his argument against regulation by imposing another regulation. How could I not jump on that subject?” (website)

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July 3, 2013

Beth Gylys

SECOND MARRIAGE

The day you proposed,
the crows nesting
beside your house
screamed human screams.
You handed me rings
lodged in a box
that looked like a miniature house.
We ran six miles, both of us
thinner from worry and surprise.
I wept and joked about divorce—
my tongue turned wood, my brain
a tilt-a-whirl, Cuisinart.
We toasted with bourbon.
What to eat to celebrate
a second engagement? Bologna?

Hold my hand and close your eyes.
How to even think of a veil,
a clutch of tulips or begonias?
Grandmother’s wedding dress
has tiny holes chewed
by mice or moths. In July,
you’ll wear your only sports coat,
all wool. The courthouse steps
strewn with trash, we’ll snag
a witness down the street
pissing in the holly.

from Rattle #38, Winter 2012

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