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Nettie Farris




M and Ns


1.

Dear M

We’re
al-
pha-

betical—
did you
notice?

My
children
are

alpha-
betical
also.

I adore
order—
don’t you? n


2.

Dear M

Some
letters
on my

keyboard
have
gone missing:

x, y,
and z.
Luckilie,

I don’t
use
these

particular
letters
often. n


3.

Dear M

As you
can no doubt
see

x, y, and z
have
returned.

They
were key-
napped

by
my calculator.
I sacrificed

my number
keys as
ransom. n


4.

Hey M

While typing
magnolia,
I realized

that
I need some
of those

number
keys.
As you

know,
I love
parenthesis.

Can I borrow
your
9 and 0? n


5.

M

My bean
pod
is now

brown
and brittle.
Also

it’s cracked.
I feel
the urge

to split it
open.
Can you

get me
another
one? love n


6.

Dear M

Calculator
has
returned

my number
keys!
Turns out,

he has fallen
in love
with me.

I don’t need
to
borrow

your
parenthesis
after all:) n


7.

Dear M

Calculator
has
begun

composing
love
poems

for me.
The most
recent

one
goes like
this:

Dear N
1 + 1 = 2
love c.








First Woman, the Stars, and Coyote

Once the world was brimming
with significance,
and the moon’s fullness
only added
to its splendor.
Now her protruding roundness
merely torments me.
I remember the kind silence
of tenderness.
I am standing in this desert,
alone,
quietly working,
a blanket of jewels about my ankles.
The sky is the color
of turquoise
and these stars,
which I am gently placing,
with care, are silver. Oh, coyote,
how could you?
Such impatience,
flinging them out all at once.
Even my blanket is unraveling.
Now coyote is gone,
and in his wake,
just this: disarray
and wild abandonment.





©2010 by Nettie Farris

Nettie Farris is a poet living in Floyds Knobs, Indiana. She teaches writing at the University of Louisville and Indiana University Southeast. She enjoys writing reference articles for Salem Press, usually in the form of biographical essays on literary and academic writers. A new convert to Catholicism, she has recently published poems in The Criterion, the weekly newspaper for her archdiocese.


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