Just outside my South window
LITR0110B: Poetry I
Date: 1/2025
Assignment: Consider what we heard in class from Toni Morrison as it relates to "the poetics of attempt." Write an attempt poem of your own -- a poem that is reaching/straining/trying/becoming something...or attempting to emulate another writer's style, etc...play within the confines of whatever you take attempt to mean.
Just outside my South window
My grandmother peers at me
Curiously
From a dying oak tree behind my college house
She fans her wings
Once
Twice
And cocks her head as I bring my hands to my mouth
Adjusting to the precarious swaying of her new home
My grandmother peers at me
Pedagogically
From her final seat
(but for now, it’s just the living room sofa)
She feebly points towards the South window of her suburban bliss
Towards the red-breasted robin
That beats its wings
Once
Twice
And tells me
“Those birds were white until one plucked a thorn from Jesus’ temple;
They’ve been crimson since the crucifix”
The robin turns towards us
Cocks her head
Chirps
(in agreement)
And my grandmother bows her head in prayer
Clutching the rosary wrapped around her nasal cannula
Avowing, with every exhale,
Hail Mary full of grace