Wife*
Get comfortable with the word, “Wife…”
A brief whiff of air that snuffs out a candle.
Prepare for midwifery, pregnancy,
childbirth, postpartum and hysteria.
Imagine you are a Siberian ice maiden
frozen for two thousand years—a blue
glacier calm and crystalline between
your unblinking eyes and the sun—
a long winter after the fire. Even if
you have married your best friend
—maybe especially if you have married
your best friend. Suck on the honeycomb
of lust, chew the wax, meticulous grooming
kicked to the side. It might take fifty years
of togetherness to learn to make coffee—
grind the beans, boil water, wait
four minutes and then press. Gobble up
all the fat; eat no lean. Even without
the pumpkin shell you may not remember
what life was like before this, how
you always wanted to be feared rather than
beloved. A wife, is a wife, is a wife—
babies cry you awake—pain means
you are alive. Count to ten before scolding
in as many languages as you know the numbers.
Refuse to sew lost buttons back on.
Toss burnt toast into the compost.
Keep the dishwasher loaded.
Remember your honeymoon, how a gecko
clung to the plaster wall—how you watched
it skitter across the ceiling? Be that way—
sure footed and filled with adventure.
Nab the buzzing fly
with the sticky side of your tongue.
*after Ada Limón
______________
Dale Champlin
Review by Suzy Harris
This poem toes that thin line between amusing (“…Gobble up/all the fat; eat no lean. Even without the pumpkin shell you may not remember what life was like before this…”) and serious (“…pain means you are alive.”) The examples of tiny rebellion are surprising: “Refuse to sew lost buttons back on. Toss burnt toast into the compost.”) And the ending—be like the gecko, “sure footed and filled with adventure. Nab the buzzing fly//with the sticky side of your tongue.” That is the most surprising of all. I love how this poem gains momentum as it goes, like a snowball rolling downhill, and takes the reader along for the ride.
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
What starts with Get comfortable with, is anything but. Each stroke here hits clean and loud – the clanging of a tin cup against the bars of a jail, powerful as the drive and the full right to break free of it.
Review by Dave Mehler
I had the great pleasure of hearing Dale read this live during a Salem Poetry Project event for Triggerfish. I loved it, and asked for it. No one writes a great love poem like Dale. It’s interesting that she is putting her stamp on a poem after Ada Limón, because she has such a distinctive voice herself, often wryly humorous, and unconventional.
Gobble up
all the fat; eat no lean.
Indeed.
Review by Paul Jones
Champlin’s contribution “Wife” draws on the style of Ada Limón. A very good model to say the least. And once beyond the recitation of domestic routines, the command to “Remember your honeymoon” leads to a more surprising final charge “Nab the buzzing fly//with the sticky side of your tongue.”
Review by David A. Goodrum
With wit and panache, Dale details the many pitfalls and downsides to being a wife and the likelihood it signals the end of a life – “Wife… / a brief whiff of air that snuffs out a candle.” – and the “sticky” persistence and patience – “Count to ten before scolding / in as many languages as you know the numbers” – it likely takes to survive being one. I imagine if given a chance to do it all over again, she just might.