Three Poems by Montana Wojczuk

Reading Marianne Moore

reading Marianne Moore
delighted by her gold-foil
words & eyeing cagily
a man in rolled up cuffs
enough, he'd be an afternoon
's delight belonging to a day
then fanning away
like smoke before a greater fire
His dark curled hair
dancer's wrists rubbed in oil
button down with leather grace
soft as soft and hard
inescapable as a dream
like smoke
corkscrewing into
the drooping bud, a glut
of after-
hours, glow, after-wards
the devil is excused to goat
about the room
farting and smoking
(burning scent of clove)
wiping sweat away
with silken hooves
Reading peacock indigo
twenty-five pound
lobster
if he winked one cagey
eyelash, I'd go.

Murderous Instinct

Helplessly perfect
soft wings,
sound of air
pushed
through a rolled tongue,
confused
angle of the neck
like death
in a basket of snakes
(do they eat the eggs?
or hatch them in slimy
legless
stomachs)
cupola of wing
altar of engineering
smack!
prrrr
smack!
the law–
falling,
catch light air
brain so small I could squish it
(one eye winked)
against thumb and finger.

Sweetness

Vanilla is a favorite ear
adornment, southern ladies
wear it tucked behind their pearls
as if they heard the scent.
The concoction is illegal
but so are their maids,
ladies tuck an extra fiver
into apron pockets in the morning–
white cotton ironed twice
floating above brown legs like the sweet
poisonous aftertaste
of vanille diffused in olive oil.

About the author:
Montana Wojczuk is a poet, essayist and playwright. She recently was a finalist for the Fence/Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg contest, was awarded an Academy of American Poets prize for new work by students and an award from the Anne Frank writing contest for poetry concerning the holocaust. She has been the recipient of a Helene Wurlitzer foundation fellowship and a scholarship to the Tin House Summer Writers' Workshop. Her work has appeared in Tin House Magazine, Anvil online magazine, (Pause.) a journal of dramatic writing, Entropy, Poetry Motel and most strangely of all, on jewelery by San Fransisco designer Jeannine Payer. Currently she is working on her first book, a creative onfiction piece about artists and war. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.