Corinna McClanahan Schroeder
Inked
I went alone, bared the hourglass of my back
to Big Richard whose fingers spelled T-H-I-S
I-S I-T when he fisted his hands together.
“Won’t hurt,” he grunted, and I wanted to say,
“Richard, I’m here for hurt.” He pressed the gun
to me, its needles thrusting in and out faster
than I could separate. Henna-colored ink pulsed
under my skin, and I felt the shape take form,
the circle spiral in. Sweat under my breasts,
on the back of my neck. My body gave itself
to needles. My vision blistered with light.
At home, I peeled the dressing away to stare
at the welt. How strange we have to remind
the body of what it can do, of what it can say.
Snow
She would know, she tells herself. If something were to happen―were to have happened―she
would feel it, would have already felt it. All afternoon, he was only across town stocking amber
bottles on dusty shelves, the men coming in, released early from their shifts, and stomping their
boots on the mat. Now he is long off work. But there would have been a sign, she would have
heard a wreck coming in her body, no matter how far. His body is a knowledge, and she knows.
The tiny scars underneath the beard, his index finger and palm just long enough to encircle her
wrist. His narrow hips, and his chest, next to her in bed, a slab of wood. Outside, snow falls and
falls, insulating the house. And still―she would have felt it―he does not―she would know―come
home.
Vanishing Point
Those mornings, after you’d gone to work,
I packed boxes and taught myself to name.
Red-bellied woodpeckers wore checkerboard wings,
and tufted titmice sang “Peter” three times.
Mourning doves shot from the fence, wings whistling,
their low coos from the pines, needles shuttering like chimes
of light. Dragonflies and red wasps looped through the air,
and every time I tacked another signifier to its signified,
a spider would sidle across the patio, faster than
centipede grass quivers, too fast recognize. I think now
that’s why spiders frightened me. There’s too much
to lose through the needle’s eye, and I’d only looked
when it was time to leave―hornet nests like mummified
faces from the eaves, clover whispering up our calves, weeds
thick as saplings. Barn swallows that dipped and flapped,
dipped and flapped, between the high trees at dusk.
A porch ceiling’s worth of crane flies. We were two breaths
among millions―and I was nearly breathless. Evenings,
I sat outside facing the dogwoods and honeysuckles
and all the plain, unfragrant trees I hadn’t learned to name
until night like a tide took the cinquefoil’s last flare.
Corinna McClanahan Schroeder's poetry appears or is forthcoming in such journals as The Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, Tampa Review, Poet Lore, and Blackbird. She holds an MFA from the University of Mississippi and is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Southern California.
Return to July 2013 Edition
I went alone, bared the hourglass of my back
to Big Richard whose fingers spelled T-H-I-S
I-S I-T when he fisted his hands together.
“Won’t hurt,” he grunted, and I wanted to say,
“Richard, I’m here for hurt.” He pressed the gun
to me, its needles thrusting in and out faster
than I could separate. Henna-colored ink pulsed
under my skin, and I felt the shape take form,
the circle spiral in. Sweat under my breasts,
on the back of my neck. My body gave itself
to needles. My vision blistered with light.
At home, I peeled the dressing away to stare
at the welt. How strange we have to remind
the body of what it can do, of what it can say.
Snow
She would know, she tells herself. If something were to happen―were to have happened―she
would feel it, would have already felt it. All afternoon, he was only across town stocking amber
bottles on dusty shelves, the men coming in, released early from their shifts, and stomping their
boots on the mat. Now he is long off work. But there would have been a sign, she would have
heard a wreck coming in her body, no matter how far. His body is a knowledge, and she knows.
The tiny scars underneath the beard, his index finger and palm just long enough to encircle her
wrist. His narrow hips, and his chest, next to her in bed, a slab of wood. Outside, snow falls and
falls, insulating the house. And still―she would have felt it―he does not―she would know―come
home.
Vanishing Point
Those mornings, after you’d gone to work,
I packed boxes and taught myself to name.
Red-bellied woodpeckers wore checkerboard wings,
and tufted titmice sang “Peter” three times.
Mourning doves shot from the fence, wings whistling,
their low coos from the pines, needles shuttering like chimes
of light. Dragonflies and red wasps looped through the air,
and every time I tacked another signifier to its signified,
a spider would sidle across the patio, faster than
centipede grass quivers, too fast recognize. I think now
that’s why spiders frightened me. There’s too much
to lose through the needle’s eye, and I’d only looked
when it was time to leave―hornet nests like mummified
faces from the eaves, clover whispering up our calves, weeds
thick as saplings. Barn swallows that dipped and flapped,
dipped and flapped, between the high trees at dusk.
A porch ceiling’s worth of crane flies. We were two breaths
among millions―and I was nearly breathless. Evenings,
I sat outside facing the dogwoods and honeysuckles
and all the plain, unfragrant trees I hadn’t learned to name
until night like a tide took the cinquefoil’s last flare.
Corinna McClanahan Schroeder's poetry appears or is forthcoming in such journals as The Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, Tampa Review, Poet Lore, and Blackbird. She holds an MFA from the University of Mississippi and is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Southern California.
Return to July 2013 Edition