Women’s Day: Two Poems ‘after Adrienne Rich’

by Kaylee Lockett

This the Dream

In this poem,
everything is a woman.
And by that I mean
everything is water.
Hard, clean, rushing. 
Everything is eating
flowers.  Nasturtiums.
Shawarma.  We all have
bellies, here, in this poem.
In this poem we are all fed.
Every other poem touches
this one, which changes them.
It has always been here, right
in front of your ears.
When the knife is inside you
this poem.  When
your child
this poem
breaks and melts and
cleanses, even if you don’t
believe in it, even
when it is not enough,
it is.

Shadow of the Floating Poem

If desire
is dependent upon lack
I will always want you.
Verde, que te quiero verde.
When I asked to meet you,
thank you, for your green absence,
for the green bolts of wool
I’ll never send you,
and, most of all,
for moving your lips soundlessly –
after all, in memory,
vision betrays me.

Kaylee Lockett is currently an MFA candidate in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa where she translates poems from Arabic into English and serves as an editor for Exchanges.  When she is not writing or translating, Kaylee is likely trying to teach her pit bull Luda to roll over.