Editor's note: these poems originally appeared in the old/previous Luna Luna
I HUNKERED DOWN TO WATCH PA UNDER CHRIST’S HOT SUN
He chirruped a horse and my spirit grass
laid flatter than Minnie Driver’s chest
under steel-toothed blades behind the shanty
and isn’t progress a dream a scared snake
big as a mountain, me watch this shadow
devil, hear me speak under the horse jaw
velvet fawn startle Pa who shouts whoa! gee!
little stick leg little pitcher in blue
grass, blue skirts, little prairie chicken
little dickens little French horse half pint
of cider foam on my mustache tickle
tickle flutterbudget and isn’t love
stark I hunkered down to kiss his feet
to worship at the feet of the father
Do you ever think of him, Pa
Do you ever look at me and wish—
SISTER CARRIE FEEDS THE CHICKENS
and they egg, too the ceramic ewer
inside my belly
shattered on the back of a horse he galloped
did I fly I had life water
wetting leather
a lady mustn’t
won’t swing water stick legs in church
won’t want plasma alone Charles, she gestures
little pitchers have big ears and spawning ovum
have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet
he galloped did I fly and I was tented
I was an outhouse I was pinned under the town drunk
I bleed I flew
his breath a fire the town a fire I fly I fly
BE A GOOD GIRL AND SWALLOW THE RIVER
silver fishes and all that swim in the darkness
like flicks of shine because good girls suck the mud
and this is what it is like to lose your blood
to make a body you drink it up and push the river
push the river up and up the mud and what does it mean
what does it mean to lose
mud
THE PIG’S DEATH SQUEAL
makes us squirm
and cling under
the muslin sheets
we ate his brains
blew his bladder
to a balloon kiss
Pa lets little girls
eat the curly
curly tails
all good dogs
get their reward
and young ladies
get theirs, too
because sap
runs greener
where the sun sets
Jack, friend, fiend
running and green
Author’s Note:
This manuscript originally began as a persona series poem under the tutelage of Ilya Kaminsky as part of my MFA in Poetry. It has become a labor of love over the last six years. It finally evolved into a chapbook that’s coming out with Blood Pudding Press in March. Most of the poems are devotionals, mild pastorals, and low lyric. I was really interested in breaking apart the Little House books to write around topics overtly avoided – like sexuality, death, the treatment of indigenous peoples, and the relationship between Laura and her daughter Rose (Rose was her editor for the Little House series). In my head, the poems are meant to be read as a series and as a song.
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Lauren Gordon is the author of four chapbooks: Meaningful Fingers (Finishing Line Press), Keen (Horse Less Press), Fiddle Is Flood (Blood Pudding Press) and Generalizations About Spines (Yellow Flag Press). She is also a Contributing Editor to Radius Lit.