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Mary B. Moore: Amanda and the News, c. 2016
Listen: it’s that chew chew chew bird—
hungry for pencil ends as he contemplates
the next phrase, or it’s been-there,
eaten-that bird who ruminates
the walnut leaves’ crinkle and curl,
their too-bright green, their new.
Does he know he’s new?
I’m old as stones and not as solid.
Gloria fritters a while
and fiddles my left eardrum,
a tickle not a hum. See the redbud?
She thinks that’s her, the flesh-bud
that never flowered. The President on CNN
says he’ll send the babies
he’s caged to asylum cities for spite.
Gloria aches under my ribs.
Later we pause and watch another
window where blouses, jeans,
and undies wash. Crumpled like wishes,
they form a loose ring, turning.
She gets the whirlies; I’m just mesmerized
or is it mercerized? Have mercy
on us, Blessed Mary, I used
to pray. I still like her white and blue,
sky’s wardrobe, the sea’s. I think
I’ll pour a chardonnay. I’m old like slate
and due for erasure. “Sweet Baby Jebus,”
we saw once, spray-painted on an overpass,
uncage those babies. I’d pray if I thought
a god, a mercy, could hear.
~~~
Mary B. Moore’s collections of poetry include Dear If, Flicker and The Book of Snow. She is married to the philosopher, John Vielkind. They live in Huntington WV with Seamus Heaney, the cat.
Copyright 2025 Mary B. Moore. From Amanda Chimera: Poems by Mary B. Moore (Madville, 2025). Winner of the 2023 Arthur Smith Prize for Poetry.
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Very powerful. The last line made me think, sadly, “Yes, that’s me.”
I thought of Mary Gauthier’s song Mercy Now and immediately listen to it again and I am not a music fan. Thanks!
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Yes, that’s me.
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Sweet Baby Jebus, oh, so many of them.
The person talking in this poem has come up against the desperations spinning through our crumple of a world; her posting of what she sees happening from her view of the mayhem, brings a sort of beauty in the poem’s telling, if not in what is going on.
There is also a hint of awe, almost like the rhetorical question: can this be real? How can this be happening?
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Yes to all of that, Jim. Also, the music of the language teases us, as if this is a nursery song, a children’s game. This poem is genius.
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Oh yes! A very brilliant poem I shall read on all day to apprehend.
Thankyou Mary!
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Thanks so very much! For those who don’t know Gloria, a vanished twin, haunts Amanda.
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A brilliant poem, Mary. Thank you.
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