Some of America’s most celebrated poets are standing by to write poems for you on commission. Together, they form The International Bureau of Custom Poetry. More about the Bureau here.
In this special introductory episode, Bureau agent Dorianne Laux recounts her path from gas station attendant to Pulitzer Prize finalist, including a cameo of her mother at the sewing machine in Dorianne’s poem, “Singer.”
SINGER
by Dorianne Laux
If I could go back to the living room window
of my childhood house, look again
through the pane, it would be a telescope lens
through which I might see the first woman
I ever met, my mother at her sewing machine,
rewinding the bobbin, little spool with holes
like an old movie reel our tiny lives
spun inside of. I might see
her long piano fingers touch the balance wheel,
the throat plate, the presser bar, one bare foot
working the treadle, her heel revealing
only the first three letters in black latticed metal:
SIN. My mother was what some called
a sinful woman: divorced, pregnant
without a husband, a baby boy given up
for adoption, remarried, another baby
born of another man, a one night stand,
while her husband was away at war.
She drank too much, thought too much,
laughed with her head thrown back, danced
with anyone. Too pretty, too brainy,
too tall, her black hair a snare
that hooked men in. But right now
she’s fully visible, stretching the fabric
for a kitchen curtain, a child’s dress,
swatches she salvaged from the deep
sale bins, using the selvedge for a hem
thereby cutting her handwork by half,
the black oiled mechanism banging out
dress after dress, tablecloths and runners,
nothing she couldn’t cobble together
from the waste of others. She was
a very particular, peculiar mother
and by now you can see why
we loved her. She was a lit fuse
in the rain. She turned from her work
and set those same fingers
on the piano keys and pulled
music through the air. Making something
from nothing was what she was good at:
love, children, pants and skirts
to dress them in, a table covered
with cherries on which the beautiful food
appeared, roses from her front yard garden
in an old cracked vase, her long arms
around our shoulders saying Sit still. Eat.
Try not to spill anything.
Do you have a loved one you’d like memorialized in a poem? Or a precious memory you’d like preserved for the ages? Dorianne Laux and the other professional poets in the Bureau are standing by to work with you. Sessions can be private or taped for potential use on TAPIT. Use the contact form to inquire. Or call our listener line at 808-300-0449.