Melissa (no. 120 of Women’s names sensual series)
She lives as if her home is a museum:
dust doesn’t settle on the window blinds
or swirl in the harsh morning light.
Each pillow is professionally plumped,
nothing is misplaced, repeated or in haste,
waste never exists here.
She says the words “order,”
“organizing” & “selections”
as if they are delicious;
to most people, the same words
grab & turn its slobby victims
sharply & painfully inward,
as if they are caught
in a vise.
Any advice she gives sounds urgent,
especially over the phone
she sounds like an emergency siren.
What about her polished children:
are they merely ornaments to show off,
until they get dirty
or get ideas of their own—
will she straighten out
all their Slinky kinks,
or ignore them forever?
& the future:
Will anyone care about her museum,
her well-put body,
now showing its wear with aging—
Will they take over the mortgage,
or sell each object one-by-one,
after her last, restrained breath?
©2022 Carrie Magness Radna All rights reserved.
Carrie Magness Radna is an audiovisual cataloger at the New York Public Library, a choral singer, and a poet who loves to travel. Her poems have previously appeared in The Oracular Tree, Mediterranean Poetry, Muddy River Poetry Review, Poetry Super Highway, Shot Glass Journal, Vita Brevis, Home Planet News, Cajun Mutt Press, Walt’s Corner, Polarity eMagazine, The Poetic Bond (VIII-X), Alien Buddha Press, Jerry Jazz Musician, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Rye Whiskey Review and First Literary Review-East. Her poetry collections: Hurricanes never apologize (Luchador Press) was published in December 2019, and In the blue hour (Nirala Publications), was recently published in February 2021. Born in Norman, Oklahoma, she now lives with her husband in Manhattan, New York. https://carriemagnessradna.com
Cajun Mutt Press 