Wear nonsensical heels investigate the suspicion of doubt
spend more time gathering stones date a baker and learn to
taste the difference in flours impress vermilion upon a lip
emulate spiders: touch everything first before engaging
ask to be called Jane collect Janes paint the bathroom black
memorize a Basho poem that is not about leaving call your
mother only when half-drunk have an icon of Teresa of Avila
beside you when you call study walls, what they keep in
eat some animal you’ve never seen draw what that animal
tastes like clean out the deep freeze in the basement
call your mother Elizabeth as if by mistake attend a
Beekeepers of America meeting read a biography about
Amelia Earhart change the cat’s name to Amelia dream of
Icarus pray beneath low ceilings. Maybe then.
Photo by Jurvetson, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Poem by Anne M. Doe Overstreet, author of Delicate Machinery Suspended. “Resolutions” originally appeared in Every Day Poems.
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Anne M. Doe Overstreet is the author of Delicate Machinery Suspended: Poems. She has facilitated a writing critique group for thirteen years, been a Pushcart Prize nominee twice, and taught poetry workshops at numerous conferences and retreats including at Laity Lodge and Seattle Pacific University. She is an Associate editor at DMQ Review.
- Poetry Classroom: Sour Plums - January 30, 2013
- Poetry Classroom: Immolation - January 21, 2013
- Poetry Classroom: Shade Half Drawn - January 14, 2013
L. L. Barkat says
I love this poem, Anne. Again.
(I loved it the first time and the second and the third and and and)
It’s a great picture into your wit. I’m smiling. 🙂
Maureen Doallas says
Love it, Anne!
Wishing you much success in the coming year, especially with the workshop.
Donna says
Love this!
Jane
Anne Overstreet says
I can’t be the only one who does this, can I?
Donna says
I used to want to be called Marie… 🙂 Haven’t thought about another name in a looong time (although once when I worked for a customer service job on phones I used the name Donna REED and imagined myself with flour all over my face and shirts, and that all of my husbands shirts were neatly ironed)!
Laura Brown says
Love this.
Collect Janes …
I bought a red cardigan with Jane over the heart for a quarter at a thrift shop in Arkansas in college. One of my classmates in grad school in Pittsburgh kept defaulting to calling me Jane even though she knew that wasn’t my name and even when I did not have that sweater on, because I had it on when she met me.
That “Maybe then” is tantalizing.
Anne Overstreet says
Laura, now I’m gonna have to find a ‘named’ shirt at Goodwill and reinvent myself for a day. Hmm…
Megan Willome says
The first time I saw this poem of yours, I printed it to keep in my poetry scrapbook. Now I know it’s you! And though I don’t know you, through Tweetspeak, I feel like I do.
Happy New Year.
Anne Overstreet says
That’s quite a compliment, Megan. Bet I’m in good company. Do you know, it took me until the end of today to register WHY “Resolutions” was relevent… even though Jeff and I spent the afternoon walking by the water and talking about what we hoped for in 1213!