Two Poems by Christy Crutchfield

Diet

According to everyone
I am many fruits.
Pear, my whole body
peach, my ethnicity
long list for apple.

I’m neither box
nor window
nor empty school bus
and I don’t want to keep time.

With Hearty and Full
over mountains of meat
square of potatoes
and heaped neon corn
would it be man
woman or bus
if I eat this
microwavable dinner.

***

For the Dead Who Have No One to Pray for Them

I’ve collected every button I own.
I removed the useful ones
from coats, the decorative ones
from sweaters.  This way
I’ve learned how buttons are sewn.

I’ve collected them into my palms
and every day one button
into this pond, water threading
through four holes today
two tomorrow.

Sorry that it’s buttons
instead of the tiny bones
of ceremony
like you wanted
I’d like to learn
how a small bird
is constructed.

I lit a grocery store
candle for you today.
This would be easier
if my hands were bigger.
This would be easier
if this pond weren’t a puddle.

More poetry at Used Furniture.

Comments

  1. That first stanza of the first poem is killer.

    I love the way you leave the buttons behind in the last stanza of the second.

    Really excellent work.

  2. Wow, thanks.

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