Rachel Todd Wetzsteon
Rachel Todd Wetzsteon Poems
Meanwhile, meanwhile used to be my limp's
accompaniment. Meanwhile (as my legs
maneuvered an abyss), a ballet is
...
On sullen nights like these
when my spirit counts its woes like pearls on a string,
you bring me armfuls of spare pantsuits
...
The strings, as if they knew
the lovers are about to meet, begin
to soar, and when he marches in the door
...
If walking, like wine, only abets a sad mood
let's try it, I said, and I did:
over these hills that have never known sorrow
...
I hate the travel logs that tell you
more about the pain than the place,
yet here I am again, narrating
...
When the wind invades the treetops
and the trees agree, shivering
take me, take me, when their
...
Maggots in the food, maggots in the floorboards,
maggots in the recurring nightmare in which,
lying down with a rugged adonis,
...
Because I gazed out the window at birds
doing backflips when the subject turned
to diamonds, because my eyes glazed over
...
We had gathered under a tent in the park
for some words before lunch and after separate mornings,
and when—twice—the poet said "capital,"
...
The park admits the wind,
the petals lift and scatter
like versions of myself I was on the verge
...
Since you were not Hume's sunrise
I watch the late-May moonrise alone
and a nicotine trance assures me
that summer is coming, and the arrival
...
Somewhere Zeno was smiling, the foul
goblins of paradox were wearing
their fairest clothes that night. My Dinner
...
Or else our drunken tumble was
too true for daylight's pleasure,
too much in vino veritas
...
In fat armchairs sat
indolence and impatience,
plotting my downfall
...
I'll fly off to a fjord in Norway,
post "Oh the pain" above my doorway
if you insist on going your way,
...
Rachel Todd Wetzsteon Biography
Rachel Todd Wetzsteon (November 25, 1967 - December 24/25?, 2009) was an American poet. Born in New York City, New York, the daughter of editor Ross Wetzsteon (the name is pronounced "whetstone"), she graduated from Yale University in 1989 where she studied with Marie Borroff and John Hollander. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an MA, and from Columbia University with a Ph.D. She taught at Barnard College. She lived in Manhattan and went on to teach at William Paterson University and the Unterberg Poetry Center of the Ninety-Second Street Y. Her work appeared in many publications including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New Republic, The Nation, and The Village Voice. She was poetry editor of The New Republic. She took her own life[how?] on Christmas Day or Eve, 2009. Since 2010, a writing prize has been offered in her memory in the Columbia University English Department.)
The Best Poem Of Rachel Todd Wetzsteon
Clubfoot
Meanwhile, meanwhile used to be my limp's
accompaniment. Meanwhile (as my legs
maneuvered an abyss), a ballet is
beginning, and the dancer's perfect feet
propel her downstage, where applause is waiting.
Meanwhile a sad man stomps his gloom away
by stomping evenly: one two, one two
means never blue, his motto goes. But I
was born to other paces, different measures;
the roads I take are undulant and lined
with fluid hedges, trees that take a dive
whenever I am near; a bird's ascent
slows down to an eternal crawl; and when
a doctor's order takes me to the city
it is a jagged gotham, full of spires
that waver in the sky like falling knives
or silver metronomes. Meanwhile, meanwhile
(the rhythm steadied me) a lover steals
upon his mistress with the quietness
that only flatfeet know. So quietly
that he might just as well have stayed at home,
I add when my self-confidence is at
a high point, and the view is at its best.
And sometimes I have thoughts, before the surge
of meanwhile drowns them out, that limping is
a thing I'd voluntarily take up
if I were just as upright as the rest:
I see myself, erect, stampeding through
a garden's sturdy, stale geometry
and nearly knocked down by the urge to say
incline, I like your style; ravine, hello;
how many good things share your curvature;
it is the slant of rainfall when the wind
convinces it to drift; it is a sight
that those with level heads and steady feet
miss out on. In a coracle (my new
enthusiasm leads to stories), you
are better, bent; the more you tilt, the more
the water welcomes you, its addled waves
a live reminder of your being there,
its leaping fish a sign that you are still
alert and in command. The clubfoots have
a myth concerning Orpheus' head,
and though I doubt its authenticity
I like the way it goes: hacked off, the head
was rolling down the river, when a change
came over it—it bobbed, it jumped, it shuddered,
it caught itself in weeds, but struggled free
because of all its energy, and then
its eyes began to come to life, as if
a pretty tune enthralled it even then.
Meanwhile his killers marched away, saying
he had his ups and downs. Of course, of course
to hobble is to hinder: sick is sick,
no matter how you change the second term
to suit your needs. But sometimes I am sure
that when I limp along a crooked street,
my dancing shadow is a model for
the stiffs who hurry past without a sound,
showing them this way, that way, as they reach
the little level huts they call home.
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