2009
I came across Nanette Rayman Rivera’s poems in the year 2009 at Up the Staircase Quarterly’s online Issue 4, where she was a featured poet. I was immediately moved by her impressive voice. Her lines, "Your hands are already protesters/knotting below sea level" explored the uniquely female dissatisfaction in a woman’s life. In the same poem further on, "Today you complete another vicious cycle tragically corkscrewing into libraries,cafes, and the River Charles." "The question of tragedy as you question my face", she grapples with the limited options available to a woman to understand the aspects of her personal life, exploring the social sources of it. - June Nandy.
"vinegar-girls-to-women won't hire me" by Nanette Rayman Rivera
--later, in the street, the rain is waiting
in your laps. You’re the composers of burred sleepless decades
of days traipsing for work without a stiff handshake,
of pastures erased into earth without an Iris rainbow--
kitten-heels that’ve had it by the Copley Square lions.
Your hands are already protesters
knotting below sea level. Still full rasp-berry lips--
--much later, the stars are waiting.
I will wait you out. I won’t go
home, won’t get on the subway, not
at this hour, no, you can’t make me.
Otherwise almost summer--
compass roses orbiting don’t-walk signs, meeting secretly
in rain gutters. Today you complete another vicious
cycle tragically corkscrewing into libraries, cafes,
and the River Charles. The question of tragedy
as you question my face, beat me quickly,
leave through the third rail. You see, I make you
myth....I’ve forgotten you already--
The answer to beauty is truth. Still whitetail deer legs and eyes--
A bandage, bartenders and whiskey, two pretty men stacked
by the back door smoking. To be separated.
Off-stage, beauty blanketed, almost ruined, replicated
in the mirror, please wash your hands. Posted,
lovewords......healed fire ....men with jobs,
in their play I become normal.
in your laps. You’re the composers of burred sleepless decades
of days traipsing for work without a stiff handshake,
of pastures erased into earth without an Iris rainbow--
kitten-heels that’ve had it by the Copley Square lions.
Your hands are already protesters
knotting below sea level. Still full rasp-berry lips--
--much later, the stars are waiting.
I will wait you out. I won’t go
home, won’t get on the subway, not
at this hour, no, you can’t make me.
Otherwise almost summer--
compass roses orbiting don’t-walk signs, meeting secretly
in rain gutters. Today you complete another vicious
cycle tragically corkscrewing into libraries, cafes,
and the River Charles. The question of tragedy
as you question my face, beat me quickly,
leave through the third rail. You see, I make you
myth....I’ve forgotten you already--
The answer to beauty is truth. Still whitetail deer legs and eyes--
A bandage, bartenders and whiskey, two pretty men stacked
by the back door smoking. To be separated.
Off-stage, beauty blanketed, almost ruined, replicated
in the mirror, please wash your hands. Posted,
lovewords......healed fire ....men with jobs,
in their play I become normal.
