Great news! My poem, “Domesticity,” just received an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Western Michigan University Creative Writing Contest, in the graduate level division of poetry.
Thank you, Adam Clay, for judging and for your recognition of my poem! It is greatly appreciated; this poem really means a lot to me.
BEES & HONEY
It is spring, and what you expected
of its beauty has not yet
arrived. Things are still a little too dead
to wake up & break open. Soon the flowers
will act like small, color-blown cups
for the insects and the rain.
A.R. Ammons steps out into
the great open and says,
“I am extremely beautiful.”
Don’t worry so much about the rain and
whether or not there will be dew
the next morning. In the end, there is always rain—
somewhere—in the end, there will always be dew
to fall and cup over your cheek. Whether these
are tears, of sadness or joy, or dew, will not
matter. Your child will be extremely
beautiful. Life is everywhere.
The bees are calming down.
*
inspired by A.R. Ammons’ poem “Bees Stopped”
“steps out into the great open” is borrowed from A.R. Ammons’ poem “Some Months Ago”
POMEGRANATE
This is how it happens—he lifts
the dress above your head
and brings it down around
your hands. You become
a peacock, all feathers,
all lace. You breathe
deep, shrinking
your frame as he fastens
the eye-hook, zips up
the dress. Then, the shoes—crows’ feet—
and you are ready.
As you are presented, you realize
this event is on reverse:
the male, in flaming color,
wears black. You, in startling white, hope
to maintain one tradition: the free fall,
like the red-tailed hawk, when
the two of you, at last, meet
at the center of the sky, latch
your talons, and fall.
ULTRASOUND
The body is pregnant with limbs
and dismemberment—they tremble
and clutch. Their mouths are open
and closed again, the green bodies like ghosts
turning over, a foot thrusting outward,
another hand reaching gripping
emptiness. It reaches for you and gathers
nothing, is not angry—tries again.
This is how you know these are the earliest signs
of motherhood—all that came before (windy breeze)
was the carrying.
UMBRELLA: CUSTOMER CARE
Humans are a series of feathers
left inside-out. You are out
in the rain, pacing from one eve
to another, looking up
at the splintered gutters, left
cracked from last year’s
Michigan winter. At the door, you take
the world inside—one footprint
from the dirt path, a stone
from the park. Then, the disconnect:
all the croaking frogs and birds
chirping with the coming storm
are left in the trees; here,
there is a television,
warning signs. You point at the object
in your hands, and like a silent film,
she is at your side, touching
your arm, and pointing back.
Beneath her finger, there is
a small button, and a label that says,
Open here.
TORNADO
Before you know it, the earth takes on
an extra layer of skin.
The wind is whipping, whistling,
and when you look outside, you realize
this is how everything
communicates: We speak. We destroy.
And then it’s over. The world
may have a few more years—and then
all the buildings
and swing sets and tornado shelters
will be empty. Instead, our bodies
will all be scattered, our frames
saying, Enough noise.
The earth will take its time in burying its dead.
TENACITY
It’s this simple: the first relationship
is nothing but a series of elephant bones—
the dust and chalk that stumbles
through the mouth. The body is fragile,
indiscriminate, pining for what is lost
in a field, or has never been given.
You spend your time shedding the skin,
the old bone, in place of fresh marrow.
You become faceless and disappear
into another body, another voice,
forgetting what it was like to look out
onto the ocean.
*
written November 16th
SHE WANTED TO BE AN AIRPLANE
Whether it was old wood
or metal, it did not matter: it was the flight
that was important, the escape
and redemption of a sky over the house
where she’d grown up, the shed
where she sometimes hid
in the middle of the night, watching for
raccoons. She found a baby one, once, dead
next to a pair of bushes. She’d held it
close, surprised at the coarseness
of its fur, the skeletal look
of the side of its thin face. The eyes
were blue underneath the lids, too young,
the tongue almost white
behind its teeth. Gently, she put it back
where she’d found it, her hands
locked beneath its small weight, touching
the dew-tipped grass, for only
a moment, but it stayed with her. She knew,
even in flight, that it would, but that she could forget
other things, or at least put them
at the distance of clouds.
*
written November 15th
CHASTISED
The questions come like glass
and ice. She removes
her hair and a piece of
her skull—this is all that could ever
protect me—and the brain
beneath is pulsing
and pink and white. Later,
in his dreams, he tells
the other bodies that there was yellow,
too: the series of electrons,
leaping: hoping for survival
elsewhere.
*
written November 14th
MORNING SONG
Lackadaisical cries, and the morning
is open. Outside, the world
is still dark, but in here—through
the neighbor’s walls—I hear the earth
turning. She is small, perhaps three,
and I can imagine her in the small
purple pajamas I saw when the family
first moved in. Her hair, a springtide
of brown curls, bounces
the more she screams. It is nonsensical,
hardly a word, but the odd, loud cries
of birds. Then, the thud
that can be heard throughout
the house, and the quiet that impedes.
This has become the norm.
We do not speak of it, we do not
show signs of understanding.
We are quiet, and the morning simply
proceeds.
McKenzie Lynn Tozan is an aspiring poet in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She is presently an MFA candidate in Poetry at Western Michigan University, where she is the Layout & Design Editor and a reader for New Issues Poetry & Prose and is one of the Assistant Poetry Editors for Third Coast. She previously graduated from IU in May 2012, during which she was the Managing Editor for 42 Miles Press for two years, and assisted with reading for the university’s in-house publication, Analecta. Her work has appeared in various online venues, Analecta, and various independent publications elsewhere.
McKenzie Lynn Tozan 