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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

9 of 30: "Summary Wednesday" by Matthew Pennock

There's this excellent essay by Camille Rankine called "Do What You Do, Love What You Love." With work and poems on the brain, today's poem is "Summary Wednesday" by Matthew Pennock:
Half the girls in this train car wear gold earrings, large and oval, bisected
         by their names in script. They are yours because you name them,
         your Lekenya, your Mirellie, your Yesenia.

Excessively ornate, almost illegible, like your grandmother's cramped
         handwriting in a Hallmark card with loopy golden cursive relaying
         every detail of the rest home in Orlando

where her former pastor now resides—the year of establishment,
         the founder's name, what the food is like, how once someone moves in,
         they have no plans of ever moving again. 
Tomorrow, you settle on a plan for breakfast, you settle on banana. You are
         not hungry. It sits there on the desk still in peel, nervous for inevitable
         disrobing. Stare at Banana. You sit there. It is afraid.
9 of 30. Happy National Poetry Month!