Kimberly Ann Priest
A Brief Lesson on Location & Setting
Because you don’t have a criminal mind, you won’t suspect
a criminal mind as you set the fork next to the bone
white plate on the table from the set you were given
as a wedding gift. And you’ll assume he really does need
to take the car—your only car—every day to work
even though he’s employed by his father merely a few blocks
away where company vehicles sit in the lot
next to the company office. The question will come up
in conversation but he will always explain, and it will always
sound reasonable, as will his lack of explanation for why
he often comes home late. You won’t have questions
anymore within a few months. The first night
a storm takes out the power, he will teach you how to use
an oil lamp correctly, even though you already
know how. But this lamp is different; it belongs to his mother.
Best to teach you again. He does. You light it carefully
tonight and set it in the center of the table for ambience—no
storm—attuning yourself to beauty as you learned to do
long before you met him; and the flicker from the lamp
is beauty waiting to happen when he sits opposite you
at the table smiling up, your faces framed in the fire’s glow.
You hope, anyway, that this is what will happen.
Placing the water glass above the plate, you are careful not
to set it too much to the side because, since youth,
you were taught the importance of a perfectly set table--
not from breeding, but from blaming. Once,
you watched your father knock his glass over while at
the dinner table. Debbie! he scolded, looking across the room,
sharply, in her direction, It wasn’t where it belongs!
Silence; your mother rushing to beautify his setting again.
Because you don’t have a criminal mind, you won’t suspect
a criminal mind as you set the fork next to the bone
white plate on the table from the set you were given
as a wedding gift. And you’ll assume he really does need
to take the car—your only car—every day to work
even though he’s employed by his father merely a few blocks
away where company vehicles sit in the lot
next to the company office. The question will come up
in conversation but he will always explain, and it will always
sound reasonable, as will his lack of explanation for why
he often comes home late. You won’t have questions
anymore within a few months. The first night
a storm takes out the power, he will teach you how to use
an oil lamp correctly, even though you already
know how. But this lamp is different; it belongs to his mother.
Best to teach you again. He does. You light it carefully
tonight and set it in the center of the table for ambience—no
storm—attuning yourself to beauty as you learned to do
long before you met him; and the flicker from the lamp
is beauty waiting to happen when he sits opposite you
at the table smiling up, your faces framed in the fire’s glow.
You hope, anyway, that this is what will happen.
Placing the water glass above the plate, you are careful not
to set it too much to the side because, since youth,
you were taught the importance of a perfectly set table--
not from breeding, but from blaming. Once,
you watched your father knock his glass over while at
the dinner table. Debbie! he scolded, looking across the room,
sharply, in her direction, It wasn’t where it belongs!
Silence; your mother rushing to beautify his setting again.
In Anticipation of My Husband’s Reply
By the time I write this poem, I will be divorced {and a poet}, and the name of the ‘gypsy’ moth will
have become ‘spongy’ moth to erase oppression of nomadic peoples in Eastern Europe now referred
to as Romani; but, for me, this change will not bring to mind the way history takes strides to undo
damages of history, language understood as a viable weapon--no, violent weapon capable of altering
whole national egos until they surrender a fight willingly, not because of lack of ammunition or skill
but because of who they are. Less, suddenly. Reduced by merit of a few believed symbols on
documents, walls, and signs. But you see, this is not what I think of when I learn that the ‘gypsy’ moth
is now Luminaria dyspar, or ‘spongy’ which, sadly, looks unpoetic on the page. Instead, I think romantic
or romance, as in the letter that arrived at our home within the first years of our marriage addressed to
me from somewhere in Romania. I carefully unsealed and withdrew its contents: a single, typed note
in perfect English asking after my welfare, whether I was still alive. Holding the thin paper, I recalled
the moment its writer took my hand on a backstreet in Bucharest and said, "Act like we are together. They
like to kidnap blondes." I thought it a ruse to hold my hand until one of the men in this seedy section of
the city tried, later that week, to kidnap a blonde. I never answered that letter addressed to the
seventeen-year-old girl, now a woman, from an equally grown man, understanding its mission
perfectly; and, at the time, also understanding mine—to stay married, already having been termed to
give up so much of my power to you. It remains in a box containing a few of my regrets; the spongy
moths returning each summer to remind me that a name can be changed quickly with a few legal
strokes of a pen. But the poem I write for the letter I should have answered has nothing to do with a
name; this is about identity—yours, my husband, and mine.
Lovingly
By the time I write this poem, I will be divorced {and a poet}, and the name of the ‘gypsy’ moth will
have become ‘spongy’ moth to erase oppression of nomadic peoples in Eastern Europe now referred
to as Romani; but, for me, this change will not bring to mind the way history takes strides to undo
damages of history, language understood as a viable weapon--no, violent weapon capable of altering
whole national egos until they surrender a fight willingly, not because of lack of ammunition or skill
but because of who they are. Less, suddenly. Reduced by merit of a few believed symbols on
documents, walls, and signs. But you see, this is not what I think of when I learn that the ‘gypsy’ moth
is now Luminaria dyspar, or ‘spongy’ which, sadly, looks unpoetic on the page. Instead, I think romantic
or romance, as in the letter that arrived at our home within the first years of our marriage addressed to
me from somewhere in Romania. I carefully unsealed and withdrew its contents: a single, typed note
in perfect English asking after my welfare, whether I was still alive. Holding the thin paper, I recalled
the moment its writer took my hand on a backstreet in Bucharest and said, "Act like we are together. They
like to kidnap blondes." I thought it a ruse to hold my hand until one of the men in this seedy section of
the city tried, later that week, to kidnap a blonde. I never answered that letter addressed to the
seventeen-year-old girl, now a woman, from an equally grown man, understanding its mission
perfectly; and, at the time, also understanding mine—to stay married, already having been termed to
give up so much of my power to you. It remains in a box containing a few of my regrets; the spongy
moths returning each summer to remind me that a name can be changed quickly with a few legal
strokes of a pen. But the poem I write for the letter I should have answered has nothing to do with a
name; this is about identity—yours, my husband, and mine.
Lovingly
--
Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of Slaughter the One Bird, finalist in the American Best Book Awards, and chapbooks The Optimist Shelters in Place, Parrot Flower, and Still Life. She is an associate poetry editor for Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry and assistant professor at Michigan State University.
Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of Slaughter the One Bird, finalist in the American Best Book Awards, and chapbooks The Optimist Shelters in Place, Parrot Flower, and Still Life. She is an associate poetry editor for Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry and assistant professor at Michigan State University.