The wonderful
Tuck Magazine, a journal of social justice, poetry, fiction, essays and more, has closed its doors, closed them in fact, back in May. (Archives still up on their website.) Looking back, I see I have quite a few offerings in those pages. Here are just a few that seem pertinent today:
CONFIRMATION BIAS
Diana
says - I need some distraction
from the interaction
So
what about the woman who sleeps on the floor
of
the post office
Gentle
Jim in the surf shed
The
guy who can’t keep his pants up
or
budget his dole?
Senator
Mitchell, you have become beside
the
point
with your talking points
Yes, this is happening right now
Right here
Here Hear
See something, say something
Diana
of the naughty daughters
Sexual assault yeah it happens
Sometimes
Somewhere
But
not on the floor
of
the Senate
The
floor of the cloakroom
or
the Post office
The
dark of the woods
The
glare of the beach
They
call it confirmation bias
See
what you expect
Hear
what you are predisposed to hear
Speak the truth you want to believe
The fact is there are
more than three monkeys – explains Diana
to
her strangely quiet daughters
Tuck
2018
Time Lies Heavy on the Head of
State
When
you’re waiting for an indictment
and
the next hot take from the White House
You
need distraction from “Where are the
children?”
and
“I did not collude with those Russians!”
So
you go for a long walk
with
dogs who never think of time
And
the sky is suddenly blue
devoid
of contrails or conspiracies
The
children are all accounted for
in
the playground with moms and nannies
The
Russians are all in books written
by
guys with long unpronounceable names
Time
stands still for a while
Water
is clean and populated by ducks
Air
is fresh and not a coal plant
in
sight, nor tar sands nor asbestos
Walls
are for holding in the earth
for
lilies and roses and geraniums
No
one is denied a plane
or
told to go back where they came from
We
are all where we belong
Dogs
can tell you that
Every
step, every joyous leap,
every
play bite on the leash
equal
opportunity for fun
and
love of life on the one day they take
at
a time.
Tuck,
1/22/19
#NotMe
If
Cheryl wasn’t leaning, smoking, against the front bumper
of
the VW in the Salisbury Beach parking lot,
that
summer of 1966,
while
Bobby Whittaker and I made out in the back seat,
his
Beatle hair flopping into his eyes, charged –
and
if the bright summer afternoon wasn’t crowded with moms,
dads,
kids –
it
might have happened then.
If
Wendy and Steve had not tagged along, insistent,
to
the party at Harvard’s Elliott House – Steve’s house too
he
reminded me —
and
then followed us home, me and drunken Tad
that
spring of 1967,
and
tucked him into bed on the living room couch
covered
by an Indian print bedspread,
and
sat on the floor making small talk until he was sound asleep,
his
snores full of beer and lost desire,
it
might have happened then.
If
I hadn’t learned enough self-defense to know
how
to sound tough when I wasn’t feeling it,
and
didn’t have that confidence born of being right –
if
not in the right place –
when
the dead-eyed man who stopped
for
the girl hitchhiking on Mass. Ave at twilight
reached
across the front seat and grabbed at my breast,
I
wouldn’t have shouted “You fucking pig!”
loud
enough for people in other cars to notice,
and
if I hadn’t grabbed for the door handle
when
his eyes came alive with hate,
and
tumbled right out onto the still-hot pavement,
it
might have happened then.
And
if I hadn’t grown wary and distant
and
been lucky –
mostly
that, dumb luck, kept bad things at bay,
most
of the time –
it
might have happened anyway.
But
it didn’t. I made it.
So
far.
Tuck,
2/19/19
