A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

My Name is Quinn Margaret

364 A Face to Meet the Faces My Name is Quinn Margaret Jeanne E. Clark My sister wore a peignoir From the time she was three. She knew All the names for froufrou nightgowns And the time of night when any woman, As she said, who was truly a woman, Puts up her hair. Lucy Electa was nylon On the move, hair spray and cherryPainted toes hitching roads Named Bluelick and Slabtown. When I was born, summer curled Tomato leaves dead brown. I was named Quoin, after a man, My father’s Indiana uncle who wasn’t a man, Really. He brought carnations And pictures of his second house in Mexico, Always the parrots and young boys Whose names I couldn’t say. I was born with weevils in my stomach. I was born with wooden feet, Or, as my mother says, pronating arches. My legs knocked. She says My job is harder, To be smart instead of beautiful, To know men like Nietzsche, Words in which women like my mother Find inspiration: that storm Which does not kill you makes you happier. 365 Not the Poet, Not Me So each day I work harder, My pink hands pulling The strings that make my bottom half go. I learn the names for my puppet parts: Pelvis, a basin, knee, which is the joint Between the thigh and lower leg. Heel, Back part, despicable person. The foot, a group of syllables Serving as a unit of measure in verse. I walk a slant board. I pick up marbles with my toes. My hands work faster. My legs faster, Get strong, get hungry, These parts below my stomach, The sounds they make: Wood against wood, Ohio Blue Tips, And their harder job: to burn, As in the verb, to be on fire. ...