Reddy - Double Jinx: poems

Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit www.milkweed.org. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Reddy, Nancy, 1982 [Poems. Selections] Double Jinx / Nancy Reddy. First edition. paper) ISBN 978-1-57131-938-8 (ebook) I. Title. Title.

PS3618.E4269A6 2015 811.6dc23 2014050288 MILKWEED EDITIONS is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Double Jinx was printed on acid-free 30% postconsumer-waste paper by Versa Press. for Smith CONTENTS

The villain shows himself too soon and is all wrong for this play not a dashing captain but a pirate with a stick shift for an arm and a stopwatch in his heart. Where the audience should bethe rows of lovely velvet seats and numbered placards, donated by the dead or named for themtheres only sea. The violinists do a kick turn and set out into the waves. What happened to the playwright, to the plot? Who will stitch the chorus to the theme? Who will, when the curtain drops, unhook the beauties from their wings and turn them back to girls, wrap terrycloth robes around their sequined bodysuits? We cannot wait for angels. Well be our own gods now. Watch us swinging from the rafters like a lifeboat or a bird of prey.

Divine and Mechanical Bodies The year my sister turned into a crow I ran the cinder track around the football field for hours. I stayed on after practice ended, after coach packed up his whistle and his stopwatch, after the other girls changed back into sweats and carpooled home. At my house my sister gathered all the shiny things. She plucked the buttons from our parkas and strung them from the bedposts, lined the closet doors with tinfoil and propped the silver-plated serving trays along the dressers so that everywhere she looked shed see her own eyes looking back. She wouldnt speak. When our mother called us down to dinner she answered with a raucous preening call, she piled mall kiosk pendants around her feathered neck.

She wouldnt eat the meals our mother cooked and instead slurped juice from cans, clawed the soft and flaky centers from the caramels in the cut-glass candy dish our mother kept for guests. She grew bird-boned and slender, a brittle core inside each inky feather. That year, though no one had died, not really, my mother filled the basement freezer with casseroles, each aluminum dish an archaeological dig of hash browns, beef tips browned in butter, cream of something soup. In bio lab we pinned and bisected earthworms, diagrammed their tiny hearts on worksheets. Somewhere a teacher called out kingdom, phylum, family. We smeared the cultured cells from petri dishes onto slides and marveled at their manufactured one-cell lives.

I ran the track each afternoon, my mix tape turned up loud. The sun set earlier and earlier each day behind the goal posts. At home my mother diced and browned the onions. My sister made herself a feather bed. The first snow fell around us as we slept, flakes soft as down, clotting the trees whose leaves had not yet turned and fallen, turning the lawn bright as a spotlight. The Case of the Double Jinx THE SCARLET SLIPPER MYSTERY Youre Nancy Drew and you drive a blue coupe.

You drive fast. Your mother is dead. Shes the new-hired help and youre a nosy houseguest. Shes a model turned jewel thief and youre hot on her trail. Shes a pretender to the fortune of the countys richest missing bachelor. Youre solving mysteries that stump the cops.

You sass them back. Youre flip-haired and eagle-eyed. Youre a daredevil detective on the trail of a breathtaking escape. She fooled you once and wont again. THE FOOTPRINTS IN THE FLOWERBEDS Youre peering in her windows. Youre watching as she hides the proof beneath the sink, as she scrubs her hands with lye.

She splashes bleach across the tile. Youre watching as she runs the bath. You watch. Shes wasp-waisted and flaxen-haired. Youre not the better sister. Youre no ones good-time gal.

Youre a bayou, a river caught fire. Youre armed with flashlight and revolver. Youre casing the estate. Ned will get you for your date at four. Hes late. THE MYSTERY OF THE WOODEN LADY Shes a cocktail dress and youre day-old rye.

You find a blond hair on the sofa bed, stockings in the spare room. You come home late one night and find your house lit like a birthday. You tiptoe to the window, your skirts hem catching on the hedges. Shes in your house. Shes dancing slow with fickle Ned. She laughs at all his jokes.

Now youre a pincushion. Youre the sulfur smell of rotten eggs. You do the only thing you can. You run. THE CLUE IN THE BREAKFAST NOOK You run home to River Heights. You bolt the door.

Youre a sure shot, an expert swimmer, a gourmet cook. You bake birthday cakes and ice them all with arsenic. You learn to knit. You believe in the jinx. You wont say his name, wont look at the phone. Shes a damsel in dishwashing gloves.

Shes at your kitchen table, sugaring her tea. Neds a lost sock. She smiles your smile and wears his jacket. She hums. Youre gimlet-eyed. Youre losing steam.

THE SECRET LOST AT SEA This time youre the belle of Miami Beach. Youre busting up a gang of smugglers. You drink rum and dance all night. You learn to surf. A strange man licks the saltwater from your hair. The smugglers are setting sail for Cuba.

Youre an inside job. Youre on their tail. Theres a girl here dressed as you. You surprise her on the ships back stairs. Now the jig is up. Youre found out, tied up, left to drown.

You tapdance SOS against the cabins roof. THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING HUSBANDS Youre on vacation in the snow-stunned Alps when the innkeeper comes to you for help. Hes getting threats from a dark-wigged woman who claims that shes your twin. Youre snowed in. He tells you all the towns most handsome men go missing after dark. You wear a borrowed mink and sleuth by candlelight.