Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Finish! And find a job. And pay the landlord.

Three poems by Maryann Corbett

The Resistance

  • Their backs bent double and their heads kept low,
  • the seedling maples infiltrate the row.
  • A tyrant with a keen idea of order,
  • I slaughter the insurgents at the border,
  • scuffle and slash and yank and pluck and tweeze.
  • But revolution pinwheels down the breeze:
  • Acres of green back gardens — maple-graced —
  • rain down new hopes that root in rot and waste
  • to rise demanding, mindless, ruthless, rife.
  • All forces fail against their rabble life,
  • their want that everlastingly insists.
  • They lift their heads. And then they raise their fists.
  • (Previously published in River Styx)

Concealed Carry

  • Yes, any idiot might be carrying here.
  • No taped-up gun-ban sign, square capitals
  • flapping against the supermarket doors:
  • FOODCO BANS FIREARMS IN THESE PREMISES.
  • Nada. So anybody might be packing.
  • But aren’t we always at each other’s mercy?
  • Guileless and stubby-fingered as the toddler
  • who grubbed in his mother’s purse and shot her dead,
  • we never know what triggers we might pull.
  • Every word, a small bomb at the roadside:
  • Lob the grenade of your long and placid marriage
  • at the gray clerk, alone again at sixty.
  • Grandchild-gossip — it’s acid in the face
  • of the woman down the aisle, still empty-armed.
  • Even now amid the produce bins,
  • as Marvin Gaye wails heard it through the grapevine,
  • the man beside you is setting his broccoli down
  • abruptly, as though skewered through the vitals.

Lesson

  • Once, the child of a neighbor down the alley
  • (kid just getting the hang of chubby pencils;
  • mother barely a nod-and-wave acquaintance)
  • stopped me, urgent of eyebrows, face a puzzle,
  • asking, would I be going back to school now?
  • No, I chuckled, I’d had enough of schooling.
  • (That left out the specifics: strings of letters
  • straggling after my name; gilt-edged diplomas.)
  • Here’s what held in my brain: the pang of grown-up
  • panic wringing his answer: “But you have to!
  • Finish! And find a job. And pay the landlord.”
  • Little ears, so expert at overhearing....
  • (How I handled the rest, the conversation
  • turning matters around to chalk and crayons,
  • memory muddles now. But the scar of hearing
  • woe not meant for my ears — it’s a welt, still tender.)

Maryann Corbett has published three books of poetry: Breath Control (2012); Credo for the Checkout Line in Winter (2013), which was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Prize; and Mid Evil (2014), the winner of the Richard Wilbur Award.

Sponsored
Sponsored

In 2009, Corbett was the co-winner of the Willis Barnstone Translation Award. Her poems and translations have appeared widely in print and online and have been featured in Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, American Life in Poetry, and The Writer’s Almanac. She lives in Saint Paul, MN, and is recently retired after almost 35 years of work for the Minnesota Legislature.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

At 4pm, this Farmer's Table restaurant in Chula Vista becomes Acqua e Farina

Brunch restaurant by day, Roman style trattoria by night
Next Article

Tijuana sewage infects air in South Bay

By September, Imperial Beach’s beach closure broke 1000 consecutive days

The Resistance

  • Their backs bent double and their heads kept low,
  • the seedling maples infiltrate the row.
  • A tyrant with a keen idea of order,
  • I slaughter the insurgents at the border,
  • scuffle and slash and yank and pluck and tweeze.
  • But revolution pinwheels down the breeze:
  • Acres of green back gardens — maple-graced —
  • rain down new hopes that root in rot and waste
  • to rise demanding, mindless, ruthless, rife.
  • All forces fail against their rabble life,
  • their want that everlastingly insists.
  • They lift their heads. And then they raise their fists.
  • (Previously published in River Styx)

Concealed Carry

  • Yes, any idiot might be carrying here.
  • No taped-up gun-ban sign, square capitals
  • flapping against the supermarket doors:
  • FOODCO BANS FIREARMS IN THESE PREMISES.
  • Nada. So anybody might be packing.
  • But aren’t we always at each other’s mercy?
  • Guileless and stubby-fingered as the toddler
  • who grubbed in his mother’s purse and shot her dead,
  • we never know what triggers we might pull.
  • Every word, a small bomb at the roadside:
  • Lob the grenade of your long and placid marriage
  • at the gray clerk, alone again at sixty.
  • Grandchild-gossip — it’s acid in the face
  • of the woman down the aisle, still empty-armed.
  • Even now amid the produce bins,
  • as Marvin Gaye wails heard it through the grapevine,
  • the man beside you is setting his broccoli down
  • abruptly, as though skewered through the vitals.

Lesson

  • Once, the child of a neighbor down the alley
  • (kid just getting the hang of chubby pencils;
  • mother barely a nod-and-wave acquaintance)
  • stopped me, urgent of eyebrows, face a puzzle,
  • asking, would I be going back to school now?
  • No, I chuckled, I’d had enough of schooling.
  • (That left out the specifics: strings of letters
  • straggling after my name; gilt-edged diplomas.)
  • Here’s what held in my brain: the pang of grown-up
  • panic wringing his answer: “But you have to!
  • Finish! And find a job. And pay the landlord.”
  • Little ears, so expert at overhearing....
  • (How I handled the rest, the conversation
  • turning matters around to chalk and crayons,
  • memory muddles now. But the scar of hearing
  • woe not meant for my ears — it’s a welt, still tender.)

Maryann Corbett has published three books of poetry: Breath Control (2012); Credo for the Checkout Line in Winter (2013), which was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Prize; and Mid Evil (2014), the winner of the Richard Wilbur Award.

Sponsored
Sponsored

In 2009, Corbett was the co-winner of the Willis Barnstone Translation Award. Her poems and translations have appeared widely in print and online and have been featured in Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, American Life in Poetry, and The Writer’s Almanac. She lives in Saint Paul, MN, and is recently retired after almost 35 years of work for the Minnesota Legislature.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Haunted Trail of Balboa Park, ZZ Top, Gem Diego Show

Events October 31-November 2, 2024
Next Article

Dia de los Muertos Celebration, Love Thy Neighbor(Hood): Food & Art Exploration

Events November 2-November 6, 2024
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader