Poem by Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor
Photo by Amanda Greene
April 24, 2023
Not the butterfly
crank’s serrated
wheel, but the electric
one, its robotic disc
so dazzling
as it spins
around soup;
its magnetic clamp
sparing so much
mess and blood.
Gear clogged
with metal
shavings, one
friend decided
hers, long enough
on a countertop
of disappointments,
had to go.
What was razzle
can fizzle. Even
tin cans’ perfect
marriages of form
and purpose,
can feed one
too many soldiers.
When do we say
enough
of the small
monuments
to despair?
Neither my husband
nor I are good
at giving things away.
Of the cement statuettes
missing heads
in our garden
he says we can make
something beautiful.
On the front lines
where our friends
are falling apart
then finding themselves
again, I am asking
for an airtight seal
with a pull tab,
to listen for that pop
of innovation
that can reduce
our suffering,
not trigger more of it.
Melisa “Misha” Cahnmann-Taylor, Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia, is the author of six books in education, poetry, and the arts. Her most recent books are The Creative Ethnographer’s Notebook (2024) and Enlivening Instruction With Drama & Improv: A Guide for Second Language and World Language Teachers (2021). She is the author of a book of poems, Imperfect Tense (2016), and three other books on the arts of language and education: Teachers Act Up: Creating Multicultural Community Through Theatre (2010) and Arts-Based Research in Education: Foundations for Practice, first and second editions (2008, 2018). She lives in Athens, Georgia, with her husband, two children, and their rescue dog, Bagel.