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Nettie Farris
M and Ns
1.
Dear M
We’re
al-
pha-
betical—
did you
notice?
My
children
are
alpha-
betical
also.
I adore
order—
don’t you? n
2.
Dear M
Some
letters
on my
keyboard
have
gone missing:
x, y,
and z.
Luckilie,
I don’t
use
these
particular
letters
often. n
3.
Dear M
As you
can no doubt
see
x, y, and z
have
returned.
They
were key-
napped
by
my calculator.
I sacrificed
my number
keys as
ransom. n
4.
Hey M
While typing
magnolia,
I realized
that
I need some
of those
number
keys.
As you
know,
I love
parenthesis.
Can I borrow
your
9 and 0? n
5.
M
My bean
pod
is now
brown
and brittle.
Also
it’s cracked.
I feel
the urge
to split it
open.
Can you
get me
another
one? love n
6.
Dear M
Calculator
has
returned
my number
keys!
Turns out,
he has fallen
in love
with me.
I don’t need
to
borrow
your
parenthesis
after all:) n
7.
Dear M
Calculator
has
begun
composing
love
poems
for me.
The most
recent
one
goes like
this:
Dear N
1 + 1 = 2
love c.
First Woman, the Stars, and Coyote
Once the world was brimming
with significance,
and the moon’s fullness
only added
to its splendor.
Now her protruding roundness
merely torments me.
I remember the kind silence
of tenderness.
I am standing in this desert,
alone,
quietly working,
a blanket of jewels about my ankles.
The sky is the color
of turquoise
and these stars,
which I am gently placing,
with care, are silver. Oh, coyote,
how could you? Such impatience,
flinging them out all at once.
Even my blanket is unraveling.
Now coyote is gone,
and in his wake,
just this: disarray
and wild abandonment.
©2010 by Nettie Farris
Nettie Farris is a poet living
in Floyds Knobs, Indiana. She teaches writing at the University of Louisville and
Indiana University Southeast. She enjoys writing reference articles for Salem Press,
usually in the form of biographical essays on literary and academic writers.
A new convert to Catholicism, she has recently published poems in The Criterion,
the weekly newspaper for her archdiocese.
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