Meg Eden

April 23, 2021

“Laundry Woman” by Meg EdenPosted by

Meg Eden

LAUNDRY WOMAN

in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Strange—to give my laundry 
to a stranger, pay her
to wash my shorts & underwear;
to carry my dirty clothes across
a street of motorbikes and baby
elephants; for a woman
to staple a number on the hem
of my boxers, creating a hole
that lingers years after I return home.

Only my mother’s ever washed 
my clothes, does separate loads for me,
my father, and herself. Insists 
on washing underwear separately.
If only she knew! My underwear, tumbling 
with the underwear of everyone else on this street:
the fruit stand lady, the chicken kabob girl, 
the noodle shop man, the porn shop man,
the missionaries, the motorbiking college students.

Collecting my bag the next day, I find
my Pacman boxers replaced with a pair
of foreign lace panties—as if 
even the laundry woman thinks a girl 
shouldn’t be wearing men’s underwear,
let alone in the streets like shorts, 
that I’m about to enter college, that I should grow up 
and start acting my age—as if my mother, 
half a world away, is here speaking in my laundry bag. 

—from Rattle #71, Spring 2021
Tribute to Neurodiversity

__________

Meg Eden: “I am on the autism spectrum and have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder with obsessive compulsive properties. ASD is why I write, and OCD helps me fight for the precise words. Because of my ASD, I feel everything so big—and I think it’s because of this that people connect with my poems. I’m actually currently submitting a children’s book about an ASD girl who learns to find her voice through poetry.” (web)

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October 8, 2015

“Tohoku Ghost Stories” by Meg EdenPosted by

Meg Eden

TOHOKU GHOST STORIES

We remembered the old ghost stories, and we told one another that there would be many new stories like that. Personally, I don’t believe in the existence of spirits, but that’s not the point. If people say they see ghosts, then that’s fine—we can leave it at that.
—Masashi Hijikata

the old woman who visits me for tea is dead but I don’t have the heart to tell her

every time I see my mother there’s a pool of seawater in her room

and still no one’s removed that boat off the top of the Sumitomo’s building

if a boat can get all the way up there what keeps us from disappearing into the sky

like the woman who walks each morning across the ocean and back I wonder where I’m going now

what can I talk to my friend about these days I still have my son

who collects the things found on the beach someone’s television set a rusted refrigerator

a woman says that soon this city will be filled by God but is God a tsunami that takes years to drain out

the phone calls I get are from numbers that don’t exist

my husband calls his friends several times a day how are you? how are you? just in case

Otsuchi becomes a great washing machine again tumbling us in and out of memories

it’s come to the point I can’t even go out in the rain anymore that’s when I see

puddles like the eyes of dead people what can I do put them in a cup

my daughters were lined up like bowling pins outside the school waiting for the earthquake

why didn’t I keep her home from school that day she complained about her throat

every day someone new is sick whatever we try to rebuild is barricaded by ghosts

even taxi drivers refuse to go to Sendai afraid of catching ghosts

one man’s address led to a concrete slab the man was gone but the driver opened the door

just in case I was never high enough I kept climbing the stairs but how do you outrun an ocean

with all the old houses cleared and the new ones rising it’s becoming hard to remember what we looked like before

—from Rattle #49, Fall 2015
Tribute to Scientists

__________

Meg Eden: “I have worked as a research assistant in linguistics and cognitive science. I started this position right out of undergrad, and as such, felt thrilled to be involved in any way with the sciences—even if that meant I was just doing admin tasks. But I was very blessed to get to work with researchers who encouraged me to contribute ideas, and to be informed by the current scientific literature relevant to our projects. I found that reading these scientific articles and exploring the scientific world prepared me to come home from work, and respond to what I was learning through poetry. The science provided content, the poetry provided voice. I found that my poetry became stronger during this time because my idea of what poetry was expanded—I found poetry in academic articles, in fMRI scans, in working in and learning diverse languages. For me, exploration and learning are vital to both science and poetry, so the collaboration made sense.” (web)

 

Med Eden is the guest on episode #42 of the Rattlecast! Click here to watch …

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August 27, 2015

“Giving Birth” by Meg EdenPosted by

Meg Eden

GIVING BIRTH

There is a zoo inside of me,
the girl says.

Her stomach is so round
and large that her legs
look like two small sign posts.

She is thirteen years old
and the other women hate her
because she still remembers how to smile.

She points to each of her bones,
introduces them as animals: the bent
knee is a monkey, her tailbone a fish,
her feet two wild cats.

When her body contracts,
she says the zoo
is getting restless. They might break
through my stomach, she says,
if we don’t let them out.

She spreads her legs
and the women pin
her down, waiting to suffocate
whatever comes out.

But out from her comes
elephants, bears, birds, and horses.
Out of her, there is a parade
of life, and the women hold brooms
and knives, but the animals
keep running. They keep running,
with their fur still full and new
with blood, their mouths open
and ready to eat the world whole.

—from Rattle #48, Summer 2015

__________

Meg Eden: “In 2010, I first read about Gao, a Beijing lawyer whose law practice was shut down after representing a religious client. The cover of the article asked: ‘What is the cost of our silence?’ It’s because of this question that I write poetry, and also for this reason that poetry haunts me.” (web)

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