A shovel scraping bare
rock, carving up another little piece of my heart,
hoarse with it, coarse with it,
the shrill trills and come-on cries,
no slaking that thirst, that voice a saber
of thistles and pearl, that American way of making it
all up, severing the tyranny
of home ties, peacocking,
packed tight in gold lamé
like black powder
in a flintlock musket,
her colonies rebellious, and all
embargoed cargo dumped
from the dock.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 14, Issue 1.
Wendy Drexler‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, Meatpaper, Mid-American Review, Nimrod (semi-finalist, 2006 Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize), Peregrine, Poetry East, Tar River Poetry, Off the Coast, and other journals. Her first book-length collection, Western Motel, was published in 2012 by Turning Point. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily and in the anthologies Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust and Burning Bright: Passager Celebrates 21 Years. Her chapbook, Drive-Ins, Gas Stations, the Bright Motels (Pudding House 2007), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Cider Press Review nominated her for a 2011 Pushcart Prize. Wendy is a poetry editor for Sanctuary, the magazine of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Her website is WendyDrexlerPoetry.com.
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