Beth McDermott

Coeur a la Creme

I stumbled upon
a stranger’s blog
this photo of the soft-

set ricotta heart
plated with tea-
spoonfuls of rasp-

berry sauce she
holds her face
close to the plate 

expecting no small
group for dinner
but a deluge 

of chalked fingers
they mother her
a quiet sieve 

the spray of primo-
cane bruised
ruddy at the pith

---

Crisis

This, too, my mother says, shall pass. Meaning
not what was averted but what will be short-
lived. This: a cornucopia of dust and pill-
boxes—still-life on the nightstand she comes
to swipe off. Replaces it with tinkling ice,
straw like a concertina. Something there is that
does love a wall, patiently waiting to hear
what ails. So when she finds the loophole:
she’ll be there, my mother says, lock-stock-
and-barrel. I’ll be there with corkscrew
and hammer. She leavens her bread so my joints
dovetail. She’s practiced the art of closing
remarks. In the embankment, she shovels snow. 

 
 
--
Beth McDermott’s poetry and prose are forthcoming in journals such as So to Speak, Southern Humanities Review, and American Book Review. She received an honorable mention for the 2013 AWP Intro Journals Award and first place in the Regional Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest. Recently, McDermott completed her PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago; she currently teaches in the English department at the University of St. Francis and live in New Lenox, IL.