Sara June Woods

Sara’s Poem

Sara wrote a poem about dying.
It was part of a sad book you would like.
In it Sara was an old woman
Sara was a baby and
no one took care of the baby
no one took care of the old woman.
All of the letters in Sara’s poem
were written carefully in the sad book
and she squinted at them
like a cat nearly asleep.
Sara showed the poem to a man
and the man coughed out loud
and said I used to be a baby
Sara fevers are for dreaming.
Everything Sara had ever written
was a prelude to something she hadn’t
written yet.
 

The Author’s Interview with Sara

A: What were you doing?
S: I was staring at the ceiling, staring at the light hanging above the toilet.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was sneaking poetry like I do in the bathrooms at work.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was letting the dog out because he couldn’t sleep and then I couldn’t sleep.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was trying not to wake you up and you told me there was all this tungsten.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was trying to remember what tungsten was. I knew it was on the periodic table.
A: What were you doing?
S: Maybe it is a metal? I don’t remember.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was trying just to get back in bed and to go to sleep even though I knew I couldn’t sleep.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was smoking a cigarette, getting one last one in before bed.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was looking at women on the internet while you were asleep in our bed.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was drinking the last of the lemonade.
A: What were you doing?
S: The last of the lemonade I brought home from work.
A: What were you doing?
S: I talk about work so much now. I am writing this at work.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was not crying. I was trying to cry.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was building these weird heavens for us for later.
A: What were you doing?
S: They kept collapsing. Everyone looked like bear people.
A: What were you doing?
S: The bear people were okay. I meant the bear people.
A: What were you doing?
S: It was the collapsing, it kept happening and I couldn’t stop it.
A: What were you doing?
S: I kept trying to start over, to make it work but I kept getting caught in these same same cycles.
A: What were you doing?
S: I was waking up, realizing about dreams that those were dreams before.
A: What were you doing?
S: There was all this tungsten.
A: What were you doing?
S: Trying to get back to that dream, the collapsing and bear people one.
A: What were you doing?
S: I could fix it now, I knew I could somehow.
A: What were you doing?
S: We were giving each other presents that hurt ourselves.
A: What were you doing?
S: It was like some bloody scary gift of the magi.
A: What were you doing?
S: How long is this going to be?
A: What were you doing?
S: Can’t I just leave now?
A: What were you doing?
S: I’m leaving.
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?
A: What were you doing?

Sara June Woods edits Red Lightbulbs and Love Symbol Press. She has been published in many places that write their names in all caps like TRNSFR, PANK and on HTMLGIANT (via LIES/ISLE). You can find her at http://healthydogpoem.info.