All Heart
Amy Herring
I want to write a big poem, a fat poem, a poem whose breasts
bulge out of her dress. I want a womanly one, with huge hips,
who wedges her way between tables of men
clunking down baskets of bread and mugs
of dark beer. I want one who throws her head back
unafraid to show her yellowed, crooked teeth
when she laughs.
I want one you could seek out in the kitchen,
off-
you’d be enveloped in soft cleavage
and flour. She’d cup your powdered wig to her chest
and understand.
I want one you would think of
with longing, long after your carriage
has pulled away, and is swaying gently
in the warm autumn night, taking you back
to those elegant, thin-
that swirled before you
in a confusion of ballgowns and flawless skin,
which lie lifeless now, in books
tossed by the side of your bed, unloved,
forgotten, half-
How to Throw a Spear or Write a Poem
Shulamith Wechter Caine
Before you begin, you must love to hold
the spear between your fingers, love
the heft of its notched and polished shaft,
the sharpened point, deadly as innocence.
And when you begin, do not fear
your enemy’s skill, his decorations
and medals for heroism in battle.
Do not think of the iron and leather
armor your enemy wears, his grimacing
facemask, his fearsome galloping horse.
Practice throwing the spear again
and again—you do not need a partner—
until it flies by itself in the chosen
direction, the keen-
the target clean as your knife slicing
an apple. That is also how to write a poem.
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