10 October 2009 | Vol. 9, No. 3
Trained Ivies
I'm carrying a black baby inside a white baby inside a floral blouse that serves as dress. I'm looking at a television through a shop window through which, by reflection, I see a floral blouse. Cantering horses hover at my throat. To go on, to leave, will be like missing my cue. I stay still and listen. Is that it? Three boys on bikes pass, spitting out cusswords. Is that it? A car door. Then another. Wait for it. The siren. Wait for it. The church bell. There it is. From inside my chest, like an animal turning beneath the porch. I clutch my purse. I smooth my ponytail. Then step through the doors saying, "They told me to take a street-car named Desire!"
printer-friendly | 
About the author:
Elizabeth Hughey's first book, Sunday Houses the Sunday House, was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2007. New poems have recently appeared in Caffeine Destiny, Zoland Poetry, Free Verse, and Starting Today: Poems for the first 100 Days in Office. She teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is a contributing editor at Bateau Press.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Elizabeth Hughey at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 9, No. 3, where "Trained Ivies" ran on October 10, 2009. List other work with these same labels: poetry, prose poem.
