American poet Jill Hoffman's new poem, "Prose" from Pratik's Current Issue

 

JILL HOFFMAN

Prose

 

To write it is to give it up

like vomiting

which I did one night

arms around the base of the toilet bowl.

 

You know you are going to pay the price.

It’s just a question of how much

and maybe when.

Echoes adhere to everything and make us humble,

 

the dagger upheld against the breast,

remembering

who said what when.

This prose commitment to daily life, to describing

 

what he was like in bed

and moving over and turning

over over and over

till he is gone, and it is you.

 

There is even a little dog

and a bench and a garden,

I am playing a mandolin, he proffers flowers,

the whole Meissen arbor

guarded by chicken wire

and razor-ribboned around,

with a tiny gold

padlock

 

that only a change of

attitude can open,

like a can of worms

that turns to gold.

Founding Editor of Mudfish, American poet, Jill Hoffman has taught in major universities (Bard, Barnard, Brooklyn, Columbia) and published in major magazines, such as The New Yorker and Paris Review. She has led the Mudfish writing workshop in Tribeca since 1990. She is also a painter.

 

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