Dawn Potter: A Listener Sends Six Letters to God, in Autumn
Last night, while I was at the piano,
my landlady pounded the butt end of a rusty musket
against my chamber door.
To all appearances, she hates my sonata.
Dawn Potter: Epithalamion for Grendel
He strides into storms, he wades into pools of silt.
Dawn Potter: Respectable Woman
No one could mistake me for a department-store model but I’ve kept my figure— not an inch of overflow, nothing to shock a stare. Express myself remains the motto, but … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: How to Ask for Money
Grandmother declared, after her third glass of rosé, that vehement was a flavor. Then she turned to stare at me. “A curtsey,” she trumpeted, “is a stitch in time!” She … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Average Land
Even a person like you, paddling away in your outrigger canoe, counting strokes and plotting interviews with fans (or, contrariwise, splitting your proud bow on a sharp rock and girding … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Lost Time
In “my dream about time,” the poet Lucille Clifton writes of “a woman unlike myself” who “is running down the long hall of a lifeless house.” I am fifty-two years … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Duet for Uncle Paul
. First Voice Vibrating with sinusitis and a gum infection, I shift from one foot to the other as my father, your big brother, creaks down onto his … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: This Guy in the Mug Shot
Chevrolet cowboy, milk-cow intimidator, today is not your day. Slipping, dipping, hunting, mudding— another jagged ode in your Jägermeister. Somewhere, island horses break trail, high on AC/DC and … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Hearth Song
Nevertheless, blindly, we smile: and again our ancient vision sponges paint and sunlight, our ears prick at the stuttering clock, the hiss of tires on pavement. Blindly, a thought tumbles … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Your Fate
No chance to deface erase retrace no no Chance to catch to recatch to Snatch out of nothing the something You mended defended tried to unfriend And it won’t leave … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Letter from a Red County; or, The Election: A Love Story
Let me tell you about my friend. She helped me raise my babies, at a time when I was lonely and overwhelmed and bewildered and not at all good at … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Dear Presidential Candidates — A Modest Proposal
Dear presidential candidates: Yesterday morning, my 18-year-old son came up with a brilliant proposal for campaign reform. He and I spent much of our day together elaborating its details; and … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Speaking of Sorrow
My son is seventeen years old, and he has a broken heart. Of course I also had a broken heart when I was seventeen, but what does that matter? My … Continue reading
Dawn Potter: Company Town
2011 E. B. Leisenring Jr., the scion of a powerful Pennsylvania coal family who led industry negotiators during a long and bitter mine workers’ strike in 1978, ignoring pleas by … Continue reading
