Norma Chapman's chapbook, Perris, California, is fourth in the Passager Books series, 6 Over Sixty. Her poems have appeared in Passager, River Styx, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Sow's Ear and elsewhere. She has received two Maryland State Arts Council grants.
Summer 2012
Table of Contents - Vol. VIII, No. 2
Poetry Fiction Translations Reviews
Norma Chapman
Tension wakes me every morning.
My body reverberates, a plucked harp.
A new note sounds before the old one stops.
I love you
and you
and you.
It’s not enough.
I drink and don’t get drunk.
A parasite in my belly feeds. It takes.
It’s the wrong time. It has to go.
The wind pushes and I push back, my hair blown
so hard it tries to leave its roots.
I am older.
What I did shames me.
I turn to the church.
I long for justice and mercy. Every cell of what I am
is sharp with longing.
A baby comes to my belly to listen, longs as I do.
Like Jacob, I wrestle with truth.
My baby breaks out to drink and live. I love her.
It’s not enough.
I’m on my knees. I’m fed by what I hated.
I need nothing.
© Norma Chapman
