I Want It Back by Shawn Colvin
I lost the thread, I lost the map
It’s not a feeling, it’s a fact
I had it once, I was on track
Why won’t it stay? I want it back
I see you there in that magazine
You’re looking smart, you sound supreme
You got such lip, you know the street
You been around, you took some heat
You mighta killed, you might be cruel
You might be stupid but we love you
You’re in the paper, you’re in the air
You’re in my head, you’re everywhere
I want it back
You’re so extreme, you’re feast or famine
You got one mission, just like a salmon
You said in life, mistakes are many
How come you never admit to any?
Are you for real or are you bluffing?
You really get me, famous for nothing
And every morning you got a name
In a world where people all look the same
I want it back
I can’t give love, I don’t know how
I write in code so you won’t know
I was on drugs, I took a nap
I didn’t mean it, I want it back
I dreamed again of paradise
I floated steady, it felt so nice
to sell your soul, just think of that
I’m halfway there, I want it back
I want it back
***
My mother gave me the prayer to Saint Theresa.
I added a used tube ticket, kleenex,
several Polo mints (furry), a tampon, pesetas,
a florin. Not wishing to be presumptuous,
not trusting you either, a pack of 3.
I have a pen. There is space for my guardian
angel, she has to fold her wings. Passport.
A key. Anguish, at what I said/didn’t say
when once you needed/didn’t need me. Anadin.
A credit card. His face the last time,
my impatience, my useless youth.
That empty sack, my heart. A box of matches.
–Maura Dooley, “What Every Woman Should Carry”
“M” is for mother, marbles, and meatballs,
but in my lexicon,
it’s for Mike, Max, and Morty.
Meeting Mike at sixteen,
I loved him madly and later
missed him more than imagined.
Mike had read all the books:
Proust, Hegel, and Marx.
He lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota
with a dog named Mildred,
and my name is Malca:
how’s that for M?
“M” is for miracles
and the mistakes we make.
I left Mike for Max
thinking that if I could choose
between these men, I would know
who I was. “M” is for men:
mean, marvelous, or middling.
“M” is for muddle
and the mud on spring campuses. Max majored in medicine
like the guy in the Beatles’ song
and made me macaroni.
Then, Max unchose me!
He met Maura while off in Missouri. The following May, I met Morty.
He took me for a spin in his Mazda,
but I wasn’t impressed.
I nearly suffocated under the weight of his gifts.
He telephoned every morning
like an alarm clock ringing.
“M” is for Mother
who liked Morty best. Maternal mutterings,
mournful matters.
“M” goes on forever,
a mouth that speaks.
“M” is the thirteenth letter
in the alphabet:
did it bring me luck? Such was my maiden voyage
in the land of men:
trying like Alice
to become a queen
which is, after all,
what the name “Malca” means.
-Memories of ‘M’ by Malca Litovitz
***
Thre’s no point kidding myself any longer,
I just can’t get the knack of it ; I suspect
there’s a secret society which meets
in dark cafeterias to pass on the art
from one member to another.
Besides,
It’s so personal preparing food for someone’s
insides, what can I possibly know
about someone’s insides, how can I presume
to invade your blood?
I’ll try, God knows I’ll try
but if anyone watches me I’ll scream
because maybe I’m handling a tomato wrong,
how can I know if I’m handling a tomato wrong?
something is eating away at me
with splendid teeth
Wistfully I stand in my difficult kitchen
and imagine the fantastic salads and soufflés
that will never be.
Everyone seems to grow thin with me
and their eyes grow black as hunters’ eyes
and search my face for sustenance.
All my friends are dying of hunger,
there is some basic dish I cannot offer,
and you my love are almost as lean
as the splendid wolf I must keep always
at my door.
-Gwendolyn MacEwen, Memories of a Mad Cook
***
Let me make this perfectly clear.
I have never written anything because it is a Poem.
This is a mistake you always make about me,
A dangerous mistake. I promise you
I am not writing this because it is a Poem.
You suspect this is a posture or an act
I am sorry to tell you it is not an act.
You actually think I care if this
Poem gets off the ground or not. Well
I don’t care if this poem gets off the ground or not
And neither should you.
All I have every cared about
And all you should ever care about
Is what happens when you lift your eyes from this page.
Do not think for one minute it is the Poem that matters.
Is is not the Poem that matters.
You can shove the Poem.
What matters is what is out there in the large dark
and in the long light,
Breathing.
-Gwendolyn MacEwen, Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear
