Wendy S. Walters
Character
Because I was wrong to bring up the past,
I have drawn a version of myself who
does more being subject than implement.
Please think of her hands in place of obscure
innuendoes or unsolved mysteries.
You may have seen her wandering through here
for atmosphere, how she sweetens my grim
introspection. Give her your guilt, and she
will do no harm to the past, your safe distance.
Invite her to recount her evanescence,
even after the writer edits down
our girl’s memories to a pile
of cracked windowpanes: ice where the prism
broke, glass where water abandoned vigor.
Wendy S. Walters
Wendy S. Walters is the author of two books of poems Troy, Michigan (Futurepoem) and Longer I Wait, More You Love Me. A book of essays is scheduled to be released by Sarabande Books in 2015. Walters was a 2011 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Poetry, and her work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Bookforum, FENCE, Harper's Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a founder of The First Person Plural Reading Series in Harlem, a Contributing Editor at The Iowa Review, and Associate Professor of creative writing and literature at the Eugene Lang College of The New School University in the city of New York.