Rebecca Cook

the construction and care of terrariums The fact is I forget, great swaths of my life, the days the years the decades compress and congeal in a kind of aspic a woman in a globe filled with photographs that stand in as memories I look up through the glass and realize I have always lived in one of my mother's terrariums. Maybe she put me in here and my life is her fault but maybe it's the bipolar maybe it's the…

A House of Water a House of Light If my husband dies before I die I will be alone. And I will stay alone because I yearn   toward aloneness the upright girlness of me yearns for her own rooms and spaces I will erase all traces of who I've been the lonely the extrovert maybe I will get a puppy. I will be alone in the house walking through the house with no one in it but me to maintain…

Outfitted with Angel Wings There was a church under the church under the stones under my granddaddy's pew there was a dark mouth a narrow stairwell a hungry maw. The was a church situated exactly on top of the church I could look up during the prayer and see it hovering a chicken-wire parade float outfitted with Angel wings. There was a church inside the church inside the hearts of the congregation the baptized heads the earnest-in- prayer claspings of hands…

at least leave us this Weep down the closet wall the captain’s keep the ocean’s portal peep hole-- you swing alone there the galley has become so small the tub molding where you lowered your mother into the water is cracking, the dingy washcloths her ancient breasts the antiseptic smells what you can never undo, she swallowed you in the end. She left you an eaten-out shell after the two of us watched her die I think that was our last…

reckoning with the spring In my most recent inventory I found that I cannot wear the new boots, the beautiful things are useless to me. I cannot wear the new blazer, the sleeves are a disaster, the bickering ladies have ruined my flowy black pants the pockets having shrunk up suitable only for finger babies. Here is the blue cardy and here is the pink cardy and here are the eight-thousand eight hundred and twenty-two babies, babies large and babies small…

In the Cleft of the Rock I am ensconced I am cottoned-up I am a smooth blue rock. I am hiding in some places where monsters can't see me. It's raining. Perhaps I should clarify perhaps I have come to the world’s end a long valley with nothing in it I am safe, I am beyond God’s reach. Perhaps I should tell you that I am no criminal I am no snitch I am loyal to a fault but I cannot…

Finally Freeing The De Kooning Women Pretty soon it will be forever. The great yellow cranes will lay themselves down beneath the unfinished bridges, the dams will untruss their girdles and flood the valleys below. I've heard it on the news I keep hearing it pretty soon it's going to heat up it's going to rise up pretty soon this sick yolk will devour the white this perpetually-starving mouth will choke on its own viciousness it is not our fault I…

no pride at all death would like me better if I didn't complain so much, if I didn't punch back against every morning pulling itself up over the ridge dragging up the sun; death would like me better except that I'm fat and death does not like fatness; death would maybe love me if I were willing to be quiet, to swallow it all down instead of yelling, instead of acting up, instead of saying fuck you to each fresh wave…

found poems are poems too, Rebecca And because he is not entirely cruel, God said unto the woman-- "Please, little one, take the first pat of butter and the first spoon of jam. Take the finest pair of slippers and the very largest clot of cream. Take up the choicest grasses and the clearest water to keep for yourself. And the dandelions. And the runt of every litter. Take down the farthest star and pop it into your mouth every night.…

found and vicious The poems are not writing themselves they are writing me some deep river in me an electric cord a space heater too close to the tub they are tightening the spring in me the jack in the box held under the pasture pond its hideous face growing slack no more sick surprise no more finder's keepers one potato two potato there were never enough closets to hide in the old shack behind the barn is missing the old…