OPEN YOUR MOUTH, JUSTINE!

by Mary Sexson

She had eviscerated herself
before the plane landed, bled
a job and reputation out through
her social links.  The birds sang
and sang, and word went round
the world, like giant drums, beaten
to a pulp, the skins bloodied
with the tainted viscous fluids
of her birth country.  And she,
silenced for an eleven hour flight
as the plane cut its arc across
the blankness of space, where
not even a tweet can be heard.
By the time she landed
her demoralization was set,
her name sung into infamy,
this white girl without a country, lost
in her own version of what went down.


Mary Sexson is the author of the book 103 in the Light, Selected Poems 1996-2000 (Restoration Press, 2004), which was nominated for a Best Books of Indiana award in 2005.  She is the co-author of the recently released Company of Women, New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013).  Her work has been included in projects such as Arts Kaleidoscope, Shared Spaces/Shared Voices, and Poetry in Paint.  Her poems have appeared in various literary publications, including Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, Grasslands Review, and a special Kurt Vonnegut edition, One City, One Prompt.  Her newer work has been included in several anthologies, including The Globetrotter’s Companion (Lion Lounge Press, London 2011), Trip of a Lifetime (Sleeping Cat Books 2012), and A Few Good Words (Cincinnati Writer’s Project 2013), and the online site, The New Verse News (2013).  She has forthcoming work in the Reckless Writing Anthology (Chatter House Press).  She was recently nominated for two Pushcart Prizes for work published in 2013.

A WHALE IN THE MINES

by Mary Sexson

How often do whales clean their ears? Well, never. And so, year after year, their ear wax builds up, layer upon layer. According to a study published Monday, these columns of ear wax contain a record of chemical pollution in the oceans. --NPR, Sept. 16, 2013

An exquisite thought,
the whale as the canary
in earth’s liquid mines, its
ear wax the testament to their lives,
to our foolishness.  It reads like
a book, the layered spikes
of fibrous rings pages that reveal
the oceans they traveled,
the depths they plumbed.
The mercury showed up,
and the DDT, the garbage
we dumped into their waters
as they passed beneath us,
these leviathans of the world,
silent singers, filtering
the darkness, listening
with ears we did not know they had.


Mary Sexson is the author of the book 103 in the Light, Selected Poems 1996-2000 (Restoration Press, 2004), and co-author of the recently released Company of Women:  New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013, with Jayne Marek and Lylanne Musselman).  Her work has been included in projects such as Arts Kaleidoscope and Poetry in Paint.  Her poems have appeared in various literary publications, including Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Grasslands Review.  Her newer work has been published in several anthologies, including The Globetrotter’s Companion (Lion Lounge Press, London), Trip of a Lifetime (Sleeping Cat Books), and A Few Good Words (Cincinnati Writer’s Project).  She has forthcoming work in the Reckless Writing Anthology (Chatter House Press, November 2013).