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Cabezón

By Amy Beeder b. 1964 Amy Beeder

I see you shuffle up Washington Street

whenever I am driving much too fast:

you, chub & bug-eyed, jaw like a loaf

hands in your pockets, a smoke dangling slack

from the slit of your pumpkin mouth,

humped over like the eel-man or geek,

the dummy paid to sweep out gutters,

drown the cats. Where are you going now?

Though someday you'll turn your gaze

upon my shadow in this tinted glass

I know for now you only look ahead

at sidewalks cracked & paved with trash

but what are you slouching toward—knee-locked,

hippity, a hitch in your zombie walk, Bighead?

Source: Poetry (February 2004).

Biography

A former human rights observer in Haiti and Suriname, and a high school teacher in West Africa, Amy Beeder balances an ear for meter with an often ominous tone, creating a musical, at times mythical, exploration of how we construct beauty and strangeness. Critic Sandra Gilbert declared that Burn the Field (2006) “constitutes an impressive debut for a writer who reveres the heft, texture, and taste of words.”

Writing in the . . .

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