Two Poems By Rebecca Keith

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Excerpt from Misdirected Postcard, Two

Hello Miss Jenelly,

Ha! Prague is all weirdo Eastern European
crazy hairdos. How is your hair these days? Cut
past the electroclash mullet I hope — still the rage
in Spain, always and forever it seems. Thank Prague
for good vegetarian food. Found one restaurant
in two days. I’m a crazed man, might go all Heart
on your city when I come back. Like Disneyland
here. The buildings are for real and like 1,000 years old. Loving
it all. Miss your beautiful face. Miss, you’re beautiful — 
face to toes on concrete, boardwalk, sand. I’m gonna
sweep you under all Prague’s bridges one day. Heard about
that Brooklyn Bridge waterfall — the kayaker
who got flipped, what’s that about? Why mess
with a good thing I say? xo 11222, USA.

Miss Dishes Turns the Calendar

Her dialogue is poor, comes out crying
out her ears into — Mouth! you say, Use — 
she can’t. Speech doesn’t know what to make of her
hours of all rake and all cut through the sounds
rattling through. All howl one day, swoon
next time, bone dragging epiglottis home,
scoops up tone with her tongue, lets it out
with a pound of heel and slap of palm
on table, on thigh, onto the pavement she treads
while it’s baking, that season she loves to roll over on,
feeling the grass on her, map blades between toes,
lemonade how it goes from the stand down her throat,
easy pie, swimming moats, by the river she thinks that the thin
strip of sand could be beach, could be dive under wave
come up bubbles and seaweed crown,
lightning bug, flashlight town.

Rebecca Keith’s poetry and other writing has appeared in Best New Poets 2009, The Rumpus, BOMBlog, The Laurel Review, Dossier, and The Millions. She holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and is a founder and curator of Mixer Reading and Music series in New York City.

For more poetry, visit The Poetry Section’s vast archive. You may contact the editor at [email protected].