Stephany Prodromides
Gender inequality is an old story that fascinates me: How a woman discovers her currency, whether it’s love, violence, or power of another kind. That awakening is an ecstatic moment, but I want the first day of the rest of her life—the moment when she cashes in. Traditional female gender roles don’t interest me. I’m interested in the irrevocable moment in stories like Helen’s, Eve’s and Salome’s. I want the stories of the compromised.
Just Like
Sales is just the transfer of emotion.
The crooked finger of coffee. Overripe
strawberries in a widening pool of stain.
Pain perdu for breakfast, & why not?
Every broken thing has another use.
A tree-on-white haze through paned glass.
The jazz you played to get me out of bed.
It’s a cedar fire, second scotch kind of day—
but please: tell Aurturo the pink camellia
goes in the shade. A plaid wool blanket.
Yes, really. Now tell me, Mister:
Do you need your wife’s permission
to buy this car? You work hard.
You deserve something new. Burled.
Sure it’s real wood. Chanel No. 5.
I have a beauty in blue, & this is where I leap
from the moving vehicle, run naked
into another room & you decide what I mean.
Stephany Prodromides has poems in or forthcoming in Drunken Boat, The Laurel Review, sou’wester, Red Rock Review, Barn Owl Review, New CollAge and CRATE, and her chapbook manuscript Fishnet was a finalist for the 2008 Center for Book Arts and DIAGRAM competitions. Her book reviews have appeared in Poetry International. She designs corporate training, and co-hosts The Third Area and the Redondo Poets readings in Los Angeles.