Denise Duhamel
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A HYPERACTIVE CROWN OF CROWNS
(in memory of three queens— Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, and Lucie Brock-Broido)

I crown myself Queen of Ants in my Pants,
what teachers used to call ADHD.
I sniffle watching cable new hosts chant
about injustice. Then I fall asleep
to a body-scan meditation app,
deep breathing in and out, starting to snore,
before waking in minutes—holy crap!--
my spliced-headline nightmares hard to ignore
even with a lime THC gummy,
a Tempur-Pedic pillow and eye mask,
my sheets wrapped around me like a mummy.
What kind of casket should I get? I ask
the dark. I need a plan for when I go,
a coffin like a new car with a bow.

A coffin, not quite a car with a bow
surprising a spouse in a commercial
around Christmas! Of course we all know
we’ll die so it shouldn’t be controversial
to pre-pay our funeral, have a plan
for music or flowers. My friend Maureen
wants to live on as a tree, her human
compost in Denver to make leafy green
shade for her yet-to-be born great grandkids.
For now, her crown chakra glows past her cancer
like a halo. Liner around her eyelids
gives her glamour. She’s a necromancer
bringing me messages from my dead mother.
Tell me a story. Tell me another.

Tell me a story, tell me another.
My Grammy said her Grammy, Lady Leigh,
lived in a Scottish castle with her brother
until Leigh eloped with the gardener, pray
tell, our hopes for aristocracy gone
as she birthed six kids in poverty, our
ancestors peasants thereafter, forlorn
in Prince Edward Island—cauliflower,
cabbage, onions, and tomatoes their crops.
No more bouquets of thistle and bluebells,
no more illicit kisses. Guzzling hops,
Leigh’s husband turned rough and the two rebels
grew apart. Disowned, Leigh couldn’t go back,
though the castle still lists her name on a plaque.

My dentist Emily tells me my plaque
buildup has lessened with the new floss.
She’s just rescued a Ukrainian cat,
a Lekvoy, a breed created by cross-
ing a hairless Donskoy and a Scottish Fold.
I’m part Scottish too, I say. She scrolls pic
after pic on her iPhone—the cat at her threshold,
in a hamper, then eating her lipstick.
We wait for the Novocain to take affect
so Emily can drill my cavity.
You can write about me, but I suspect
you poets think I’m boring. Gravity
pulls my lip as I protest. Spittle drips down
my chin. By spring she’ll fit me for a crown.

By spring my dentist fits me for a crown,
plopping it on a bit of tooth she saved
after shaving it down to a nub. No gown,
just my drool. No pomp nor furs nor engraved
jewels. I once wrote a book Queen for a Day
though I was never crowned homecoming queen
or queen bee. My silver rings, tarnished gray,
sit on the soap dish. They’ve left bands of green
on my naked fingers. I cruise Netflix--
Harry and Meghan, insufferable
in their wealth, each hauling a crucifix
made of cash. They’re so vulnerable
and, at the same time, fake. The duchess and duke
serve up glitzy privacy for rebuke.

Poets serve up privacy for rebuke.
Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath
also invoke “queen.” Called recluse and kook
by critics trying to blunt their wrath,
these two wear diadems of pain and joy.
Plath’s bees: I have a self to recover/
a queen. Dickinson’s 508 employs
crowned for her birth, sings clear as a plover
in 91. Pessoa writes “Crown me
with Roses,” a celebration, it seems,
though I can’t help but think of thorns, heavy
crown worn by Jesus. And what of their dreams?
Dickinson: It would hurt us — were we awake
Plath:...they were part of me. They were my landscape.

Crowns were part of me. They were my landscape.
The gold paper Burger King coronet.
A cigar band atop Barbie’s head, her cape
a facecloth fastened with my barrette
taken from my crown of glory. My curls
were wild, my mother spraying No More Tears,
yanking a comb through my wet hair. Her girl
fidgeted so much that she once took shears
and cut my hair into choppy pageboy.
Lucie Brock-Broido’s hair was scissored off
for punishment when she was six. Her ploy?
She never cut her mane again. Knopf
published her. How did I get on this rant?
I crown myself Queen of Ants in my Pants.

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Denise Duhamel’s most recent books of poetry are Second Story (Pittsburgh, 2021) and Scald (2017). Blowout (2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is a distinguished university professor in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami.
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