POETRY MONTH FEATURED POET: MARY MACKEY

Mary Mackey first swam into my ken during 1980 when one of her prose comedic books was read aloud on KPFA during the Morning Reading, a show I was addicted to as I ran my delivery route all over San Fran. I discovered she also wrote kick-ass poetry; in fact, she writes just about every genre. Here are two of my favorites from an early volume:

HOW DID YOU GET THROUGH

how did you get through your childhood?

I rode the subways
for hours
not going anywhere
not watching the people
not looking out the window
just riding

how?

I hid in closets
and opened my eyes
I could make the dark
turn colors
blue, red, violet
I hid behind the coats
they looked like the skins
of giants
I hid behind the couch
and put my hand
between my legs
I hid under the bed
and blew at balls of dust

how did you get through?

I climbed a sugar maple
up top
where the limbs were rotten
I hung onto the bark
like a locust shell

how did you survive?

by not being found

who were you?

they never told me.

how did you get through?

I haven't yet.


© Mary Mackey


GRANDMOTHER POEM

Sometimes in my dreams
I still see
my Kentucky grandmother
thin, strong, and hungry
holding her egg money
out to me
saying:
buy land, Mary
buy land
buy land while it lasts
they stopped making it

© Mary Mackey, both poems from "Split Ends" by Mama's Press, Oakland CA, 1974