Rose
Kelleher
winner
of the third annual Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, 2007
Two
poems from Rose Kelleher's prize-winning collection, Bundle o' Tinder
followed
by a note on the author
Lovesick
Don’t
look away, you gave me this disease.
A carrier, you passed it unawares.
My
every cell is altered now; each bears
your stamp, a mutant, every drop of me
adulterated.
If I could, I’d squeeze
the stinging poison out. It’s in my hair,
my
fingernails, each microscopic pair
of spiral strands, corrupting by degrees.
Geneticists
who study me on slides
could piece you back together. My remains
will carry
traces, in these scalded veins,
of your warm hand; in my triglycerides,
and
in the deepest etchings of my brain,
they’ll find the you my body memorized.
Zeitoun
Zeitoun,
Cairo, 1968
What
if you were, as I suspect,
a hologram,
a Coptic tourist trap, a scam
the
mortal eye could not detect?
What
if photons, fiddled with,
beguiled the eye,
glittering in the Cairo sky,
a
brilliant flimflam veiled in myth?
What
if the world, wanting a mother,
embraced a ruse,
thousands of Muslims, Christians,
Jews,
fooled into seeing the light together?
And
what if the only light to see
is in the faces
of foolish crowds in sacred
places?
Our Lady of Light, enlighten me.
©
Rose
Kelleher (b. 1964) grew up in Massachusetts and earned her B. A. in English at
UMass Boston. She has worked as a technical writer and programmer, and authored
four computer books and numerous technical articles. Since rediscovering poetry
in recent years, Rose has published poems and essays in a variety of magazines,
including Anon, Atlanta Review, the Dark Horse, First
Things, iota, Measure, the Shit Creek Review, Snakeskin
and Verse Daily, and been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. She lives
in Maryland with her husband and one very spoiled kitty. Visit
her website at www.ramblingrose.com.
"Lovesick"
first appeared in Snakeskin; "Zeitoun" first appeared in Lucid
Rhythms.
