Cecilia André
Letter of Recognition
Dear H,
I did not put away the dishes
because you always seem to need
to domesticate yourself
after the freeway. I resisted calling you
all day, to tell you how grateful I am,
for every blue vein on a resting hand,
for every rise and fall
of your sleeping shadow.
The sentiment would be lost –
caught as you are
between
a blinking cursor
and neon ballast.
I did not spend the evening
with you, foot to foot,
because I need to write
it all down. I didn’t make it
to the gym today and every muscle
has atrophied, I am sure of it.
One day gone and this is what I get:
more guilt and regret
than a childless mother
has a right to.
I had planned to do so much
that weekend you went away,
but then only the couch looked inviting.
The bathroom remained
unpainted, the garden in disarray.
How little it all meant
without your pilot’s eye.
You – who live on the water’s
surface, near volume controls,
highway signs and exhaust.
You are here and now.
I am then and when.
You go boat racing and drink
Grappa with the party, while I sit
on the ocean floor
and pray for rain.
How tender you are.
How consistent and true.
I pull at my eyes; heavy
cobwebs and suffocating hues.
But you are always there.
As reliable as daily milk.
As ready as a street.
As steady as a house.
Tina Schumann is a Pushcart nominated poet and the author of three poetry collections, Praising the Paradox (Red Hen Press) which was a finalist in the National Poetry Series, Four Way Books Intro Prize, and the Julie Suk Award, Requiem. A Patrimony of Fugues (Diode Editions) which won the Diode Editions Chapbook Competition and As If (Parlor City Press), awarded the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize. She is editor of the IPPY-award winning anthology Two Countries. U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents (Red Hen). Her work received the 2009 American Poet Prize from The American Poetry Journal. She is a poetry editor with Wandering Aengus Press, and a graduate of the Rainier Writing Workshop. Her poems have appeared widely since 1999, including The American Journal of Poetry, Ascent, Cimarron Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Nimrod, Parabola, Palabra, Poetry Daily, Rattle, Verse Daily, and read on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac. www.tinaschumann.com.
Cecilia André is a NYC painter descendant of Lebanese immigrants to Brazil. The poetics of intuitive colors guide her dynamic art production. In this series of oil paintings, stitching and weaving explore and breakup the traditional backgrounds. Currently color interplays with light in her installations at the Queens Botanical Garden Gallery. @cecilia_andre_art www.ceciliaandre.com