after meeting an old classmate at a technical writing conference
The manuals for heart and lung machines,
the indexes for case and statute books—
we write those now. Refugees, he called us,
from English programs. Somehow, we've escaped
(our ears still full of Not by bread alone)
alive, out to the world, where plain-cut words
are stone enough to build a life that stands.
We take our poems now in single bites:
Scruff-haired, still in robes, we squint at screens:
A poem a day, each morning's spare devotion.
The gift there, held before us like a host,
says Take and eat. Do this in memory.
We chew, swallow, resolve to change our lives,
then head across the yards, out to the cars,
off to the coarse-grained world. We wait for grace,
the grit of stony crust against our teeth.
Maryann Corbett lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Measure, The Lyric, Alabama Literary Review, The Barefoot Muse, First Things, Mezzo Cammin, The Raintown Review and other journals. She is a recent Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. Her chapbook, Gardening in a Time of War, is forthcoming from Pudding House Publications.