Amy Bobeda
I’m at a party at Dorothea Lasky’s. A napkin on the table says that Tess has a new book out. The napkin becomes a diorama at the Natural History Museum filled with a pool of water. Women float across the water on their bellies reciting poems. The whale wriggles free from the ceiling. The whale plunges into the water. The butler hands me a mason jar with a cracked bottom. I float around Dorothea’s living room leaking red and purple smoothie. One of my students says, “That’s a menstrual poem.” I laugh. The phone rings and someone says there was a mistake with my book contract. I’m getting a $50,000 dollar advance! I spend it on easels and used drop cloths that smell like the freshman dorm. I build a cave with my students. We sit in the cave. One student says, “I haven’t been near this many people in so long, it makes me anxious.” I say, “Me too. My computer has a worm that deleted Microsoft Word. My plants have a parasite. I probably have a virus from my cat that will make me want more cats.” I scratch an itch. My student says, “You should play the lottery.” In the cave that smells like freshman dorms we write a poem. We get in a fight. We do not win the lottery.
#
Amy Bobeda holds an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics where she serves as director of the Naropa Writing Center and teachers pedagogy and processed-based art. She’s the author of Red Memory (FlowerSong Press), What Bird Are You? (Finishing Line Press), mi sin manitos (Ethel Press), and a forthcoming project from Spuyten Duyvil. She’s on Twitter @amybobeda.
