Katherine Lo

November 6, 2023

“Mark” by Katherine LoPosted by

Katherine Lo

MARK

Not everything hard will break you, but it will 
probably leave a mark, 
 
like the scratch on the front bumper 
from a ladder propped against the garage wall,
 
the one you didn’t even know you’d touched 
until it started moving. Even then
 
a brief moment of bewilderment at this spontaneous 
wobble before your brain understood 
 
and your foot stomped the brake. That we don’t 
always feel the damage 
 
is a kind of grace, the reprieve of a door pushed 
against an overstuffed closet, 
 
solid restraint to the chaos waiting to fall 
on your head the minute you forget 
 
and pull it open. You need to deal with it, 
some might say, and they may be right. But first 
 
there’s laundry, and groceries, and teeth 
to floss. Some Saturday, after you’ve said goodbye 
 
to friends in some parking lot, you’ll head to your car
and squat in the space 
 
and light you never have in the garage, 
and take a look. Long black scrape, white paint 
 
crimped at the edges. But not bad. Nothing worth 
the trouble of fixing. 
 

—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023

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Katherine Lo: “This poem came out of a conversation with a friend about the coping mechanisms we all have and how they help us move forward, even with some damage.”

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December 28, 2018

“Gravitational Time Dilation” by Katherine LoPosted by

Katherine Lo

GRAVITATIONAL TIME DILATION

says a massive body, body of a large mass
will slow time, clocks here on heavy earth
ticking less often than clocks out in space,
clocks launched in rockets, racing far

from gravity’s pull. Here, the seconds spread
out, taking their time. Scientists say
the center of the earth is two and a half
years younger than its surface, and

when your body feels flung back
against the seat in a car’s acceleration,
it’s really the seat pushing you forward.
And you could never see someone fall

into a black hole, should you ever find
one while hiking or on a blind date,
because time stops at the edge
of the strongest mass contained

in a certain radius, at least in the minds
of those who understand such things,
which I do not. What I do understand
is that nothing is what it seems,

and what feels like pulling might instead
be pushing, and what feels like falling
is something rising beneath you.
Your slow drift from God is really

God running to meet you,
to throw a robe over your shoulders,
to kiss your face and ask
what took you so long to arrive?

—from Rattle #61, Fall 2018

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Katherine Lo: “There is much in the world around me, as well as inside me, that can wear down or erode my humanity layer by layer, bit by bit. I find that reading and writing poetry helps me regain some of that humanity, in large part by helping me see other people and the world I live in more truly. Thornton Wilder says it best in Our Town when the character Emily asks, ‘Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?’ and the Stage Manager replies, ‘No,’ then amends this to, ‘The saints and poets. Maybe they do some.’” (web)

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November 1, 2015

“The Headline Reads Processed Meat Causes Cancer, Says WHO” by Katherine LoPosted by

Katherine Lo

THE HEADLINE READS PROCESSED MEAT CAUSES CANCER, SAYS WHO

and again I hear my mother’s voice, Says who?
challenging some claim asserted
by an expert on the radio or the President
in his State of the Union address—Says who?
she would throw back, wearing her flowered apron,
her arms akimbo, the roll in her eye visible
even when we couldn’t see her face.
No authority save God was safe from her
Says who?

Says the World Health Organization, Mom, that’s WHO,
I’d tell her if I could. If she hadn’t died fourteen years ago
of a cancer no one had heard of, not even the specialists,
even though she disdained processed meat and ate more fruits
and vegetables than anyone I know. Because whatever we eat
or drink or smoke or think, we’re all going to die someday.
Says who? A little patch of green under an arching tree,
the bronze letters on a plaque spotted with rain.

—Poets Respond
November 1, 2015

[download audio]

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Katherine Lo: “The title of the poem is pretty self-explanatory, but this headline first made me laugh at its unintentional humor, then sparked a memory of my mother and a darker truth. Finding humor in dark things has been something of a saving grace for me over the years.” (website)

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