Poetry: “Grief Puppet,” by Sandra Beasley

One of my new favourite poets is Sandra Beasley…in Grief Puppet she creates an image that strikes close to home for so many of us, with the ordinariness of the puppet, and the extraordinary feeling of the flock rising from our chests (at the end of the verse)…see what you think, and look at her other work below:

Grief Puppet
by Sandra Beasley

In the nearby plaza, musicians would often gather.
The eternal flame was fueled by propane tank.
An old man sold chive dumplings from a rolling cart,
while another grilled skewers of paprika beef.
Male turtledoves would puff their breasts, woo-ing,
and for a few coins, we each bought an hour with
the grief puppet. It had two eyes, enough teeth,
a black tangle of something like hair or fur,
a flexible spine that ran the length of your arm.
Flick your wrist, and at the end of long rods
it raised its hands as if conducting the weather.
Tilt the other wrist, and it nodded. No effort
was ever lost on its waiting face. It never
needed a nap or was too hungry to think straight.
You could have your conversation over and over,
past dusk when old men doused their charcoal,
into rising day when they warmed their skillets.
The puppet only asked what we could answer.
Some towns had their wall, others their well;
we never gave the stupid thing a name, nor
asked the name of the woman who took our coins.
But later, we could all remember that dank felt,
and how the last of grief’s flock lifted from our chests.

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Sandra Beasley reports her publishing history: 
My first collection, Theories of Falling, won the 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize; my second collection, I Was the Jukebox, won the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize; my third, Count the Waves, is forthcoming in 2015. My most recent book is Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales From an Allergic Life, a memoir and cultural history of food allergy. My prose has appeared in The Oxford American, the Washington Post Magazine, and theNew York Times. I teach with the University of Tampa’s low-residency MFA program.

Here is her well-written & well-thought out blog.