No News Today - Guest Post - Erika Anderson

Slow in Your Slow World

One day your hand might reach
The heel that has fallen off your foot,
The plastic nude pump in the doorway
Looking as if it might walk in without you.

But for now your arm is suspended, a
Jeff Koons basketball in distilled water.
Your eyes are closed, but your cropped
Blond hair is gelled, you were ready
For the day, off to meet someone in your
Leopard print camisole and jean shorts.

We know you are a woman
Because in your ongoing forward bend—
The yoga pose of your afternoon—
Your thong rainbows out of your jeans,
Arcing over your ass, giving us symmetry,
If not beauty.

I wonder about these mean streets,
Why they haven’t taken you.
I wonder if someone will pick you
Up like a doll, and dust you off,
Take you somewhere near or far.

I wonder why I keep walking,
Why I don’t know what to say or do,
But who would I call and what would
They want? “There’s a woman nodding
on Broome,” I could say, but that’s not
news. Nothing’s ever news.   

Erika Anderson is a contributing editor for Guernica Magazine and teaches for the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Buzzfeed Books, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Brooklyn's Crown Heights, where she co-hosts the Renegade Reading Series for emerging writers.