"Improv"-ing on Angie Estes' "Gloss"

Gloss
My mother said that Uncle Fred had a purple
heart, the right side of his body
blown off in Italy in  World War II,
and I saw reddish blue figs
dropping from the hole
in his chest, the violet litter
of the jacaranda, heard the sentence
buckle, unbuckle like a belt
before opening the way
a feed sack opens all
at once when the string is pulled
in just the right place:
the water in the corn pot
boils, someone is slapped, and summer
rain splatters as you go out
to slop the hogs. We drove home
over the Potomac while the lights spread
their tails across the water, comets
leaving comments on a blackboard
sky like the powdered sugar
medieval physicians blew
into patients' eyes to cure
their blindness. At dusk,
fish rise, their new moons
etching the water like Venn Diagrams
for Robert's Rules of Order
surfaced at last, and I would like to
make a motion, move
to amend: point of information, point
of order. I move to amend
the amendment and want
to call the question, table
the discussion, bed
some roses, and roof the exclamation
of the Great Blue heron sliding
overhead, its feet following flight
the way a period haunts
a sentence: she said that
on the mountain where they grew
up, there were two kinds
of cherries--red heart and black heart--both of them
sweet.

Improv
Grandpa ate gray
squirrel, chewing and swishing
without teeth, leaning
against the scratched
side of his acid-green Ranger
with a willow switch
on the dash and the dogeared
Bible in the glovebox, and I saw
his lips open, unopen like thin,
boring paper around a gift
you thought you'd never get:
the argyle socks buried
silently under pine leaves,
someone is late, and winter sun
is shut out with vertical blinds. He was driven
batshit crazy with kids and
welding asbestos, wedding his best toes
to rough boots: day in, day out.
At lunch, he read Outdoor Life to learn
intimately the glint of dogs' teeth on
duck wings, the depth of salmon eyes,
the melancholy of fawn spots. I
would like to fish
for words that rhyme with perch, shoot
pool or photos or for the moon, cast
a reel into the algaed water and pull out
the bass wriggling into a treble clef: Granny
said her paintbrushes were made with either
horsehair or squirrel hair.

Junkyard, Feb 24

that word, adore, you shouldn't have opened
-from a Leigh Anne Couch poem. I think it may have been "a door" in text, but either way I love the pun on adore/a door

Junkyard, Feb 22

Drink photographs for fun
-misspoken lyrics to Regina Spektor's "Us"

Free Write February 22

Because dusk's slow implosion makes room on our pale tongues
to ruminate the words that push up our throats, we collect
on the clumpy carpet at 8 o'clock to lip leaves off ignored budgets,
to pull your father's thick voicemails out by the roots.
We range widely, cropping gardens of your facial hair, burnt fishsticks;
my lost library books, tango-crushed toes. Since your potbelly shoves

its curve into my lumbar, I know you are an herbivore.
A paleontologist would unravel a name--Therizinosaur, perhaps--with a voice
full of typewriter clicks. She would hold your pelvis up to fluorescent bulbs,
estimate your girth; judge the purpose of each molar in your jaw.
I only examine the glint of your fingernails on the doorknob to know if you're coming or going.

Calisthenics: Because-ing

Why my sister married an asshole

1. Because she finds comfort in leather interiors
2. Because his laugh is silent
3. Because she thinks soul patches and playing percussion are artistic
4. Because her finger needed a tan line
5. Because she was late
6. Because she knew nothing else
7. Because she refuses to sign prenups
8. Because they bring the wrong Bible to church
9. Because he owns a python
10. Because she laughs when he says "wicked pisser" in his Maine accent
11. Because I already expect boring Christmas gifts
12. Because it showcases the ultimate worst-case scenario
13. Because he regularly gives her bouquets of the neighbors' flowers
14. Because I didn't call her
15. Because they both sing in the shower
16. Because she prefers potbellies
17. Because the empty motions of washing dishes gives room for rumination
18. Because she's watched The Notebook too many damn times
19. Because the arrangement of wall plaques is her forte
20. Because the newspaper never comes on time

Comment on Elizabeth's Object Study: Dark Blue Mug

When you bring up ceramics in a cabinet that are mothers, I can't help but think of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast--which on one hand I think is fantastic, but on the other I feel like it might be a little expected. If you want to keep it around, it might be nice to acknowledge that association. I do definitely like the idea of a mug being "filled with silence," though. Instead of just "black tea," I would like to see a specific kind--I always love saying "darjeeling" for instance.

Comment on Sydney's Free Write, Week 6

I like this draft a lot--the narrative flows nicely, it's interesting, and you have some great words and phrases in here ("sorostitute", "Mr. Curly piggy-bank", "broken string of testosterone" "one hell of a hicktown taxidermist"). That being said, it needs to be pared down. It has some phrases that can be compacted into one image ("a black, discolored mirage of a dead oasis", for instance, would probably work better as just "a discolored mirage"). I think it could also benefit from some more specificity. For example, "earning a scarlet letter" has, well, been done. Not only by Hawthorne, but by a movie and even misused in a Taylor Swift song. It was nuanced by "carved in plastic", but I didn't feel like this was enough. I would love to see something like "I was earning a plastic letter magnet--an A in maraschino". I love the scene at the end, but I think it could probably stop it at "this poem dedicated to him" or even just say "this poem, his poem." By saying "my oppressor- / my anomaly, my catalyst, my muse" the draft ends by telling the reader what the speaker thinks about her boyfriend, while the poem should speak for itself on this matter. Once again, though, I really did like this draft overall.