Kathleen McClung – Four Poems


For the Man at Cape Arago with a Small Lacquer Box

We three share a vista point above the blue
Pacific waves. A balm, this Oregon coastline:
stones, surf, sunlight, terns. Faithful and new,

this seascape hushes chatter while the two
of us watch you aim a lens at Douglas fir, at pine.
We three share a vista point above the blue

but do not speak. We wonder what—or who—
might be inside your carved box, polished fine.
Stones, surf, sunlight, terns, faithful and new—

were they beloved by someone else? Have you
brought ashes here? One day who will bring mine?
We three share a vista point above the blue:

a stranger, Tom, and I. Below, a few
seals bark, one more language we can’t define.
Stones, surf, sunlight, terns—faithful and new

companions in our minds. We may review
them as we sleep. A box may open, shine.
We three share a vista point above the blue—
stones, surf, sunlight, terns, faithful and new.



Party with Live Jazz, Estranged Wife

What smells so strong in this house full of laughter?
Young men sit on beanbag chairs near the liquor.
A Buddhist with potholders takes cornbread from the oven.
Some improvised stew and incense cones are burning.

Young men sit on beanbag chairs near the liquor.
They stop talking while I scan for chardonnay.
Some improvised stew and incense cones are burning.
Who brought all this tequila?

They stop talking while I scan for chardonnay.
Of course they’re telling dirty jokes.
Who brought all this tequila?
Citronella purifies, supposedly, repels the unwanted.

Of course they’re telling dirty jokes.
The son of the host’s in the middle of one.
Citronella purifies, supposedly, repels the unwanted.
The son, polite all of a sudden, waits for me to leave.

The son of the host’s in the middle of one.
His father will be divorced by April.
The son, polite all of a sudden, waits for me to leave.
I can almost predict the punchline.

His father will be divorced by April.
She’s in the living room by the baklava.
I can almost predict the punchline.
Dirty jokes mainly rely on inserting inanimate objects.

She’s in the living room by the baklava,
demoted to guest this New Year’s Day.
Dirty jokes mainly rely on inserting inanimate objects.
The host leaves tomorrow for a silent retreat.

Demoted to guest this New Year’s Day,
she scrolls through her resolutions on her iPad.
The host leaves tomorrow for a silent retreat.
He will shave his head after the Dave Brubeck.

She scrolls through her resolutions on her iPad:
Pay Attention. Honor the Mystery.
He will shave his head after the Dave Brubeck.
There will be chanting. People will shoot videos.

Pay Attention. Honor the Mystery.
What smells so strong in this house full of laughter?
There will be chanting. People will shoot videos.
A Buddhist with potholders takes cornbread from the oven.



A Broken World

 Cento for Jane Clarke

Lifting our words like debris
we talk about the land, the ditches,
but before the breakfast tea is cold
promise to carry each other
when the days are short of light,
like days of Wicklow rain.

I think of the herd of cows,
lights coming on in the house, how we longed
when we talked of lost villages, lost streets.
Do you remember the bell across the river,
smooth and slow past stands of alder?
We’d slip the catch on the rusted chain.

A crack, a hush, a broken world rolls
as if it belonged to someone else—
she’s forgotten your name, sees her sister in your face
or the one who pulls ragwort on her knees.
I opened the cage of my fingers
though I don’t know why. Is it the swallow’s nest?

Let there be wind
and a song thrown to the sky,
stories for people who worked the soil
speckled with yellow iris, bordered with sedge.
I can’t promise it’s flawless as honey
or meadow-grass heavy with dew.



Cento for Two Roberts

Lines from Snare by Robert Eastwood and
Simply to Know Its Name by Robert Aquinas McNally

Young, he lettered his name into smooth bark,
came back old to find it as distorted
as memory. Above his head
the branches swept in angled arabesque.
For a moment the bird teetered
on the joint of water and air, then rose.
He never wondered for what purpose.
Stunned by the mushroom sprung
from the rained-on roadside,
could he sleep on the courthouse grass?
Silent old men on benches studied him.
He decided to roam tree-dense back streets
and the wind carried the fresh breath of ice
from even farther north.
He closed his eyes & flotsam gathered
as in narrows of a river,
sheened like mica,
tree music, stillness, then music once more—


Author’s Statement on Beauty

On a recent road trip–was it near Soledad?–my partner and I drove past a long, long freight train standing still. Even now its beauty enlarges and humbles me: the winter sunlight, the multicolored graffiti entwined on every single car, the absence/presence of people–who drove that train? who adorned it?–and the stillness–where had it traveled already? where would it go? I kept craning my neck behind the steering wheel of the car. Beauty had a hold on me. I could barely drive.

Some nights, my head on the pillow, my beloved beside me, I hear a train whistle in the distance, and again beauty takes hold. I listen to this music the way I listen to Mozart, to Aretha. Beauty exults and soothes me. It dizzies and comforts me. Beauty is a lullaby and–hallelujah!–beauty keeps me wide awake.

Kathleen McClung, author of Almost the Rowboat, was a finalist for the 2016 Barry Spacks prize for her manuscript The Typists Play Monopoly. Work appears in Mezzo Cammin, Unsplendid, Naugatuck River Review, A Bird Black as the Sun: California Poets on Crows and Ravens, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace, and elsewhere. Winner of the Rita Dove poetry prize, Maria W. Faust sonnet award, and Shirley McClure poetry prize from the 2016 Los Gatos-Listowel Writers Festival, McClung judges sonnets for the Soul-Making Keats literary competition and reviews books for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She lives in San Francisco and teaches at Skyline College and the Writing Salon. More at: kathleenmcclung.com