Patricia Hickerson
Photograph by Kevin Olson |
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AUGUST HER WAR 1944
by Patricia Hickerson holding close to her breast mean-patched jowls of the city lush stink of sidewalk hard as August cement rusty as chrome fenders humidity bears down imminent as a double-decker bus pounding Fifth Avenue in heavy weather office doorknobs clang of monitor bells clacking typewriter keys wounded women sturdy as desks bandaged in black their men at Anzio howl "Dirty Gerty from Bizerte" in mud-crusted heat and sweat sixteen summers and now her war whirling white her free-swing skirt the time of high heels thigh-gartered nylons holding her sailor's hand his middy blouse cast to the far Pacific Leyte and New Caledonia 1944 his bell bottom letters dark ribbons of hope twine her heart smoke and litter hot winds swell from the W. 23rd Street subway stop— the train grinds, squeals halts in deadly dust MEMORY OF MY DANCER by Patricia Hickerson pressed tight against your orchid sienna in your skin glint of tango in your eye Argentina on your tongue gleam of moonlight on your brow other dancers pushed us closer barely moving dizzy in your heated hills we climbed the peak shaking underground my earthquake house slanting floor open door CHIRP by Patricia Hickerson it's just now all this one night long you might hear us a bed of crickets quilting the lawn with cricket cry of cricket love we edge the leg of desire scrape and sing scrape and sing keening our passion after hours it's the same moment this year last year next year ticking it's late summer knees akimbo we spread our jointed blanket in the dark weeds and grasses hushed our silent brides needled to excitement  Patricia Hickerson New York City native Patricia Hickerson holds degrees from Barnard College and San Francisco State, and a doctorate from USC. She danced in Warner Bros. movies, later worked as a teacher, copy editor, Penthouse fiction writer, performer with the guerrilla collective FLAC in political action skits. Her poetry has been published in At Grail Castle Hotel and Daughter and Mother; also in Passager, Echoes, Choices, Medusa's Kitchen, Rattlesnake Review, WTF, Poetry Now, Presa, and Yolo Crow. |
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