Patricia Clark
Patricia Clark is the author of Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars, her sixth book of poems, and three chapbooks. She has new work forthcoming in Plume, The Southern Review, North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. Her poem “Astronomy: ‘In Perfect Silence’” was chosen to go to the moon in November 2024 as part of the Lunar Codex. She has won awards for her work from the Poetry Society of America, Mississippi Review, NIMROD/The Pablo Neruda Prize, and ArtServe Michigan. She was poet laureate of Grand Rapids, MI from 2005-2007.
36 Myopia Road
–for the house where I might have grown up, in Winchester, MA
I cannot see past the houses lining
this street. Next door is 34
and across the street are odd
numbers. Overhead, pelicans fly
in search of seawater and fish,
or do I mean chimneys and storks?
this street. Next door is 34
and across the street are odd
numbers. Overhead, pelicans fly
in search of seawater and fish,
or do I mean chimneys and storks?
An hour to Marblehead Lighthouse.
A house on the corner with a wide porch
finally sold. I imagined our family there
in future years. A red-headed girl named Ruth
never went to school. Always playing hopscotch.
I think of her as one-legged and blind.
A few houses wore rumors floating in air
around them. Someone said a cardboard box
of puppies had been buried alive.
A boy heard them whimpering all night
under fir trees that sighed. Next day
there wasn’t a sign or any proof.
When my people left for the West Coast, an egg
in my mother’s belly started to grow
into me. I can see the family sleeping
in fields as they crossed North and South
Dakota. Ripe apricots filched from trees,
field corn to break teeth on. Tomatoes, cukes.
Settling into the Puget Sound’s salt air,
they awaited my birth like the Messiah.
Stars aligned and Magi came on horse-
and camel-back. Once, a blue and white
parakeet appeared in a pine tree. My mother
tried to catch it and then I was born.
I was afraid of deadly nightshade berries, atropa
belladonna, plump in the bushes in a border near
our house. Pretending to eat them, we’d gag, falling dead.
We played rock school on the porch steps, banishing
the witch, kickball in the street. Dusk coming down
always made it look like home.
