Verdad Magazine Volume 29
Fall 2020, Volume 29
Poetry by Marjorie R. Becker
The Water Wailed It Widened There When Women Calm and Keen with Luster Owned the Wanton Wild Calamitous
No one asked, no nadie inquired
oh where and is the river close,
the ocean near enough,
this bedroom blaze
amazes, as Felipe pointed out
and then Ramon who thought
he’d handled Wild Sharona, re-defined
Carmona, no, the men who never
ever swam the raw, the radiant and
somehow calming creek of feeling
oh so fanciful, oh so somehow fabulous each
time a man, another recognized just how abundant
we women were because we owned the sounds
and we breathed,
the water wailed and wondered, when
we’d wander in again, again and once
again to sing.
BIO: Marjorie R. Becker is an Associate professor of History and English at USC. Her publications include the prize winning, Setting the Virgin on Fire (UC Press, 1996), Body Bach (2005), Piano Glass/Glass Piano (2010) and The Macon Sex School (forthcoming), all from Tebot Bach. Poems have appeared widely in journals and anthologies including Levure Litteraire, Runes, Pratik, The Pink Panther, Peacock Journal, Desde Hong Kong: Poets in Conversation with Octavio Paz, Angle of Reflection, Beyond the Lyric Moment and The Southern Poetry Anthology, vol. V: Georgia.