Wendy Mnookin

"Wendy Mnookin's THE MOON MAKES ITS OWN PLEA...weaves throughout its length some of the most enduring themes in poetry: family bonds and the inevitable losses they imply, the sometimes lazy line between imagination and reality, and the everyday world of nature with its ability to tell us about ourselves in enlightening ways. ....THE MOON MAKES ITS OWN PLEA is a worthy and rewarding volume." from a review by Peter Makuck in Tar River Poetry, Spring 2009.

"The poems understand how delight must commingle with heartbreak, and they proceed with a terseness and associative vigor that makes the familiar strange--not for the sake of the easy tour de force, but as a means to arrive at the clarity and hard-won wisdom which these poems strive for and beautifully attain."
--David Wojahn

"THE MOON MAKES ITS OWN PLEA gives us poems beautifully nuanced, reflecting life in all its ironies and mysteries, poignantly aware of the brevity that makes each moment vivid and crucial."
--Betsy Sholl

MAYBE I MADE THIS UP

My mother said, Yes, you can
wheel your baby sister

that far, and back.
The baby blew fish kisses

with her small round mouth
while I pumped high on the swings,

and higher. Hello! I waved
when I hung by my knees

on the jungle gym.
Yippee-yeah! I called

when I herded the cattle
downstream,

over the seesaw, around the sandbox,
past the distant fountain.

At home my mother asked
Where’s your sister?

and the world shifted
slightly. If

there were clouds,
they fled. If birds,

they silenced.
I can only tell you

the truth as I know it.
Last week an ice cream store

opened in my town,
and I wrote to my kids

about another opening,
years ago, when they were allowed

to walk four blocks
for free ice cream,

and each of them wrote back,
one at a time,

no, I was twelve,
I was seven,

it was summer, or vanilla,
or strawberry.

I raced with my mother
to the park and found

my sister, batting
her toys in the carriage.

Just before my mother
grabbed her, my sister

looked at me, she
saw who I was, she

didn’t look away.


A SHORT FABLE OF THE YEAR BEFORE LAST

All those different conversations,
and white lilacs, that first
summer riot. Then watermelon.
No one would listen.
Confusion grew.
Children wandered off
into complicated games
with ropes and knots.
This or that husband found his way
to someone new. Likewise the wives.
Day crumbled into its own kind of ruin.
I tried to get everything settled.
Should, the first-born, fought
in all its clamorous splendor
for top-billing, but eventually had to admit
others grow up, too. Somewhere
a well digger found water.
Bread in the ovens gave off its fragrant peace.
Abashed, should assumed its place
in the list of what could
be accomplished, what couldn't.


AT SEA

At the end of the jetty.

Where the boats come in. Where the boats go out. At the pile of rocks that swallows the sun at the end of the day.

At the turn of the trail. At the last dune.

In front of the hot-dog stand. At the door to the pub. By the shanty, the shipbuilder's yard, the discarded yellow boots, the smashed clam shells.

You thought I'd give in to despair.
But today is today, everywhere I look. And I look everywhere.