self-care

Notes Toward a Poem on Self-Care...

Cynthia Manick is the author of Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). 

​start with decisions — take a break from mirrors… decide to stay in bed today and tomorrow… count time only through midnights… isn’t there some voodoo about being the middle child/ of a middle child?… you should Google that… start humming… to broken bones of electrical appliances… that old CD player? yep you can fix it… take on do-it- yourself projects — face cream, shelves, the perfect guacamole, and a Home Alone arsenal just in case a Joe Pesci-like villain tries to arrive… pretend the varnish brush is a stag horn… who needs an app for calm??… be greedy about breathing… be greedy about breathing… avoid phone conversations and relate only through yes and no texts or emails… hey baby, can I be your Melanin Maid Marion? yes … does _____ have a job? oh no girl… is your brother/ father/husband accounted for?… (silence)… yes… if voice is required, realize that he/she/they can’t be your Sun… trust what you can hold in the hand… when we talk the body vibrates… aim for a dinosaur roar when people least expect it… enjoy words like Kilimanjaro and origami… write odes to the Do-rag, … sonnets to the Soul Train line where you dance in military-choreographed precision… so fresh and so clean Outkast, take a look it’s in a book Reading Rainbow…  Jolly Ranchers, your mother’s kitchen table… at any altitude remember that ink can hold the right kind of memory…   VIA

Unknown. Hanging flower arrangement by a mirror, about 1865. Hand-colored albumen silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

I Could Be a Boxer

I Could Be a Boxer

I have a history
of growing back wisdom
teeth, parting my gums
like persimmon fruit
and making it look easy.
Like bright dead things
look easy or carving
S.O.S. in fresh cement,
the branch moving
like arms or legs.
But I know my body—
it’s a stove that learned
early how to bake
a life or take one.
Like mending a crow’s
wing when I was eight,
its feathers thick
enough to fill an urn.
And birthing that tooth?
was like punching out
a bruised rib but
I took it like God
was in my throat
telling me not to cede.

*   *   *

Cynthia Manick is the author of Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). A Pushcart Prize–nominated poet with a MFA in Creative Writing from the New School, she has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, Poets House, and the Vermont Studio Center. Manick’s work has appeared in American Review, Bone Bouquet, Callaloo, Kweli Journal, Muzzle Magazine, Pedestal Magazine, Tidal Basin, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. A LINK TO HER NEWSLETTER