Cherryl Floyd-Miller
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Because I am also a playwright, my approach to the prose poem is most often (though not always) similar to a monologue. The form enables me to explore a burst of language as something that can spill from a particular character mouth. It seems I have always been attracted to opportunities in writing that allow me to blur the lines of genre and form and that allow my poems to "misbehave." Perhaps this urge has the capacity to drive some readers, critics and others who must have controlled poems in neat little boxes a bit insane. But it keeps me creative, alert and anticipating the endless possibilities of language.
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Burgeon
You used to open for me, didn’t you? At four o’clock in the middle of the afternoon
or in the middle of the night. You and the lovely would come, bright, lush.
Instant. A spread of wild oats. I knew how to touch you then. Knew
which spot was the spot. It changed every single time, and I
always found it. I could not wait to find the daisy
in the middle of your back, the dahlias
I could make bud from the backs
of your knees. How you could
come to me with the hard
world under your skin
and let me
rub it
all
away.
You cottoned
to me. Every single time.
But now I’m the hard world to you,
a hedge of devil’s flax and thorns. I just can’t
touch you anymore. In the places where you would move
for me, run to me, river for me, you are weeds. And you act
like there is a stigma attached to wanting me. Like you can’t come
to me anymore. Think I’d asked you stop breathing or something. I have waited
for months, and nothing. Not a single bell rings when you look at me. You don’t move.
Not a vein. Not a sprig. Everything is tight. Tell me: How can a woman so closed ever flower?
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Cherryl Floyd-Miller is a poet, playwright and fiber artist. A native of the Carolinas, she often explores cultural and feminine themes through folklore and sound devices. She has published two previous volumes of poems, Utterance: A Museology of Kin and Chops, which won a 2005 AIGA Gold SEED Award. Her third volume, Exquisite Heats, is forthcoming in 2008 from Salt Publishing.