The Tuesday Poem: “at night my dead mother appears wanting soup” by Frankie McMillan
at night my dead mother appears wanting soup
I search the town for ox tails
even the movie houses
there’s Clint Eastwood placing
a bridle on his horse
I need a bit of guidance, I say
and he turns to doff his hat
the way cowboys do and I ask
the approximate whereabouts
of the nearest ox
and he hands me a pistol
you can do this, he says
so now I’m in charge
of a Colt but how to load
or fire and time is running out,
you see light leak around the edges
the way you might if trussed up
in a haybarn, your eyes fixed
towards the door, somewhere
a gramophone playing,
all the good husbands dancing
with their wives and your mother
in the doorway with her bowl
you do what you can – hunger
merits our grief
if only you’d paid attention
at the movies, if only you’d learned
how to shoot those ox
.
© Frankie McMillan
‘at night my dead mother appears wanting soup’ was Highly Commended in the NZ Poetry Society (NZPS) International Competition 2014 and subsequently published in the NZPS anthology Take Back Our Sky (2014.)
Reproduced here with permission.
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About the Poem:
I am currently engaged in the process of re-posting poets who have had multiple poems featured here on “…Anything, Really” , or by me on the Tuesday Poem Hub, since I joined the Tuesday Poem community in June 2010.
Today I am delighted to continue featuring the “unique and insightful” (Beatties Bookblog) poetry of Frankie McMillan. I featured this poem earlier this year, on The Tuesday Poem Hub, which you should check out if you would like to read a fuller commentary. But it’s nonetheless a pleasure to have the opportunity to highlight both it, and Frankie, again today.
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About The Poet:
Frankie McMillan is the author of The Bag Lady’s Picnic and other stories, and a poetry collection, Dressing for the Cannibals. In 2005 she was awarded the Creative NZ Todd Bursary. In 2008 and 2009 her work was selected for the Best NZ Fiction anthologies. Other awards include winner of the New Zealand Poetry Society International Competition (2009) and the NZ National Flash Fiction award (2013). In 2014 she held an Ursula Bethell writing residency at Canterbury University. Her second book of poetry, There Are No Horses in Heaven was published by Canterbury University Press in March, 2015.
Very recently, Frankie both won and also took third place in the National Flash Fiction competition. You can read all about it here: A National Flash Fiction Heroine: Congratulating Frankie McMillan
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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here.