Merridawn Duckler
Ultrasound
All is choate as the tech moves the tip searching for ovaries she calls the size of almonds. My little seeds are long dispersed. My inside now a sky of unnamed constellations, waiting for new myths. She said do you want someone else in the room. Yes, a hundred million to represent the sperm. 300K to rep the eggs, knitting, nesting. On the screen clouds of matter float in the warm immaterial. My complete and grown entities are sighing in meetings, digging a post hole, eating a sandwich, touching the head of a wriggling dog, walking everywhere in hope and wonder and hope. I close my eyes and see I am on loan, in debt to mercy. She kept giving me clean towels. I said my tears have dried, darling. I am only making new mysteries at present. I will not see you out, she says. Go right, left, right.
Vessel
after Par Lagerkvist
Possibly a woman in a red dress, sits in a chair
waiting for someone to say beautiful woman
not beautiful dress.
Or she stands and as she walks
the zippers teeth unclench
down her long, straight back.
She follows the cry of sacred flutes
to the birch grove where sibyl’s
clutch their throats of gibbering words
the priests extract, disdainful
of the mere vessels,
gorging on juicy sibilants
that know prediction, count mystery, see death.
One night the priests come for their due
and find all the virgins have vanished.
Only a single, naked woman
sits in a rattan chair, fanning her painted toes.
Confused, they cry:
where are our answers wracked from the body of the living lord?
And this woman says: You want answers?
Read my red dress.
The House on Sixty Second
That cannabis dispensary, top of the hill, was once a mom ‘n pop
grocery in the neighborhood of my childhood. You know,
the place we live before we understand place and live.
All stories start here, the scarlet winking feet of our neighbor,
as she chattered over hose spray. My revulsion at her blood-sipped
toes, I could only dream to feel such deep, present disgust again.
Boys on bikes against a background of dense, pre-storm yellow sky.
Our block ended in an Oregon copse of blue-black Douglas
century old trees, the everlasting residue of night. Up the street a family
with a live turkey invited everyone to see their prize. December
the invite’s rescinded, no one would tell me why.
The mind washes over our brilliant childish games, enacted in twilight.
Always the light remains. Here come the babysitters, sleepy
as Alice’s dormouse, chewing gum and brushing our hair. One snuck
her boyfriend over, an illegal act as we rattled into his failing
truck—the motor coughed like nails in a tin— between
their stickiness where thigh touched thigh
I sat, on the bench seat, hand to wind,
and we drove far, far off the charted universe ,
while harmony inside the radio conned me
into thinking music would always be right.
In the grocery he bought his smokes. They bribed me with candy.
Could have me for the ride alone.
For years my throat caught when I passed that sacred palace
of transgression, now the green cross of banish and forget.
In the Orchard
leaves turn under a sun
bright as mylar, open light
on the apple, red by invitation.
O fragrance for a strong mouth
that can halve the worm.
Ground unevenly worn,
a ditch
by the washed out
bridge.
Here’s where she walked, alone as always.
Where the sprawling thing made itself
a question mark:
not why
why not.
Merridawn Duckler
Merridawn Duckler is a writer from Oregon and the author of INTERSTATE (dancing girl press) and IDIOM (Harbor Review, Washburn Prize). She has a theology degree from Hebrew College. Her writing has been published and anthologized. First place in the Beulah Rose poetry competition from Smartish Pace. First and third place in the Jewish in Seattle Fiction contest. Winner of the Elizabeth Sloane Tyler Memorial Award from Woven Tale Press, judged by Anne Beattie. Merit fellowships to Squaw Valley, SLS in St. Petersburg, Russia, Norman Mailer House, Southampton Poetry Conference, Southampton Theater Conference. She was a finalist for the Sozoplo Fiction Fellowship and named to the Wigleaf Top Fifty. Residencies include Yaddo, the Horned Dorset, National Winter Playwrights Retreat.
More on Merridawn Duckler’s work can be found on our Links page.
