Mike Scalise

As I mentioned last week, today is Poem In Your Pocket Day, so I’ve opened the envelope and taken a look at what Ninth Letter armed me with for today, a verse from poet Sara Pennington (please forgive the formatting here):

You watch your mother through the barn’s KNOT HOLE.

She sharpens anything that she can use for killing, polishes and

cleans her own dead daddy’s Confederate gun, his knife folded

quietly in the homespun pocket of her skirt. The pitchfork

gleams like a fox’s hungry chops, the scythe fleers its grimace,

the sickle its overwrought smirk. Between the weapons, her fingers

turn to kippers, writhing, those pale-bodied worms eaten up

with death. And now, you know why she keeps moving; she

must. To rest would be to give thought to the maggots, to the

five-haired fungus, to the earwigs and earthworms; idleness

serves only the graveyard’s nibbling legions. She will not feed

her anger like slop to the swine. Vengeance is mine, saith the

widow, for each stillness, each silence is dark-mouthed

KEYHOLE through which grief slithers like a honey-voiced snake.

The verse is from “Primer: An Abecedarian” and I look forward to letting people know, when they talk to me today, about the “graveyard’s nibbling legions.” I want to hear how other people’s PIYP day goes. So either sign up for a “poem-a-day” e-mail from Knopf, or go over to Poets.org, print up a poem, put it your pocket and start sharing it with people. There are several opportunities around DC.

For one, there’s the Cheryl’s Gone reading series tonight, which features poets from Wave Books. And I found out Work-In-Progress that there will be a “Poetry at Noon” event at the Library of Congress, where you not only get in free for flashing your poem at the door, but you can also read it to everyone at the event. (The LOC is right down the street from my house, and I’d like to make it over there, but I have way too much to do today. We’ll see.)

Anyways. Leave PIYP encounters in the comments.

Sara Pennington dot com (link)

Work-In-Progress: “Thursday Is Poem In Your Pocket Day” (link)

Poets.org: Poems for Every Occasion (link)

Poem-A-Day emails (link)