Candice Reffe
I believe in rare diseases, natural
catastrophes, avoiding ladders & black cats.
I'm sure a single cancerous cell
is biding its time deep in my breast
or worse in my silky dura,
that it will be fruitful & multiply.
I doubt anyone likes me, or if they do,
not as much as they like someone else.
If I didn't have to
I'd never leave the house, even
people I love make me nervous:
you know what I mean?
The do-they-really-like-me refrain
cha-cha-ing up & down
the walls of my skull, my ganglia
a bundle of questions & fears, intricate as
a foreign metropolis & all the signs
in Chinese, duck and pig slung by their necks
in the market, & the booth next door
selling high heel shoes. At the temple
a gong vibrating & the simultaneous
blast of traffic, cigarettes, incense.
The raised characters on a cardboard card
that translate as The Hotel Charming,
the flimsy connection between
being lost & found.
You're a human, you know what I mean:
the balance dial's adjusted
& the music pours through like oxygen, or
it's all treble or bass, too loud
or too soft, the wiring awry.
Does it begin with
the first swallow or earthly air?
We're visiting our friends' newborn,
& we're having a good time, yet
there's this simultaneous transmission,
insecurity lapping at our heels
like loyal dogs, (what do people think of me,
you ask as we drive home, what do I
look like to other people?). Set against
the amazing fact of the baby's five day
old fingers clawing the air, an
anachronism from our monkey days: elongated
digits groping for the next limb.
She's new to this world, she's
just trying to break her fall.
Tables of Content
Seventeen (Fall 2003)
Sixteen (Spring 2003)
Fifteen (Fall 2002) Fourteen (Spring 2002)
Thirteen
(Fall 2001) Twelve (Spring 2001)
Eleven (Fall 2000)
Ten (Spring 2000)
Nine (Fall 1999) Eight (Spring 1999)
Seven, (Fall 1998) Six, (Spring 1998)
Five (Fall 1997) Four (Winter/Spring 1997)
Three (Summer/Fall 1996) Two (Winter 1996)