from Blood Orange: Poems, by Angela Narciso Torres (Willow Books: Detroit, Michigan, 2013)
To Do
Call repairman about refrigerator gasket,
find model number first. Buy chicken-flavored
toothpaste for Lilli. Consult vet about lump
in her eyelid. Ask Jade if she can pick up Timmy from band.
Yoga class. Write Ian at camp. Search the basement
for Bishop’s Collected Prose, re-read the piece about
her mother’s getting fitted for a purple dress in Nova Scotia.
Buy folder with metal prongs for Matt’s book report. Schedule
the boys’ dental check-ups, mammogram for me.
Write Irene about the boy with the faux-hawk and good
shoes on the train from Chicago, reading a Bible
from a zippered case. Tell about the elderly couple
and their two-year grandson, how the grandfather clutched
the boy when the train lurched, then picked him up
as though lifting a brittle Chinese urn from the mantle.
When the boy wriggled into his grandmother’s lap, how she,
so unconcerned and vast, kept her eyes on her paperback,
held open with one hand, her other arm around the boy
who draped his body over her chest, his cheek on her padded
shoulder so he could look out the window. The grandfather
watched the boy with utter concentration, no — amazement —
at the small face, smooth as cream and lit from within,
watched him with the kind of awe for the young that only intensifies
as one grows older.
It is truly amazing for self to read Angela and realize how she juggles all the competing roles in her life — mother, wife, poet, poetry editor, friend — so expertly and with such aplomb.
From women everywhere, Angela, major kudos.
Poet, Looking Fabulous: Angela Narciso Torres on the Streets of Chicago, October 2014
Stay tuned.
