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Vocation
For six months I dealt Baccarat in a casino.
For six months I played Brahms in a mall.
For six months I arranged museum dioramas;
my hands were too small for the Paleolithic
and when they reassigned me to lichens, I quit.
I type ninety-one words per minute, all of them
Help. Yes, I speak Dewey Decimal.
I speak Russian, Latin, a smattering of Tlingit.
I can balance seven dinner plates on my arm.
All I want to do is sit on a veranda while
a hard rain falls around me. I'll file your 1099s.
I'll make love to strangers of your choice.
I'll do whatever you want, as long as I can do it
on that veranda. If it calls you, it's your calling,
right? Once I asked a broker what he loved
about his job, and he said Making a killing.
Once I asked a serial killer what made him
get up in the morning, and he said The people.
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Sandra Beasley is the author of Made to Explode (forthcoming February 2021); Count the Waves; I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize; and Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a disability memoir. She also edited Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. She lives in Washington, D.C. ["Vocation" is from I Was the Jukebox: Poems. Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Beasley.]
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Wonderful poem! Brava.
Posted by: David Lehman | November 15, 2020 at 03:46 PM
Thanks, David. I completely agree.
Posted by: Terence Winch | November 15, 2020 at 03:52 PM
Parallelism never had it so good! I really like the force of the repeating structures, the extremity and originality of the song's chosen events, the hilarity of its seriousness, the seriousness of its hilarity, the strong high bridge the speaker crosses to meet their thrilled and happy reader.
Posted by: Don Berger | November 15, 2020 at 05:18 PM
Sandra reminds us that we're only partly human--mostly we're supernatural mischievous beings who can turn language on edge. Sandra is delicious, operating on the edge the way she does. She always brings a poem home, stubbing her toe on something wonderful.
Posted by: Grace | November 15, 2020 at 05:21 PM
Thank you, Prof. Berger. I think you hit the target with that comment.
Posted by: Terence Winch | November 15, 2020 at 05:53 PM
Thanks for the comment, Grace. Sandra is a fierce talent.
Posted by: Terence Winch | November 15, 2020 at 05:55 PM
I'm extremely jealous here. I'll have to calm down.
Yes, as Don Berger said, and then: I really love it when a poetic (or prosodic) device reinforces the ideas in the content.
By the way, 4 of these statements are true of me.
Posted by: Bernard Welt | November 16, 2020 at 12:14 PM
wow, you sure know how to pick'em Terence...another poet I didn't know of but now am an adoring fan of...
Posted by: lally | November 16, 2020 at 01:32 PM
Great poem. Good hearing it with such strength. Loved it.
Posted by: Eileen Reich | November 16, 2020 at 01:34 PM
Thank you,
mo chara is fearr. I knew you'd like this poem.
Posted by: Terence Winch | November 16, 2020 at 02:58 PM
I'm happy you liked it, Eileen Reich.
Posted by: Terence Winch | November 16, 2020 at 02:59 PM
Really fine, especially loved the ending! Thanks for the introduction!
Posted by: Maureen Owen | November 16, 2020 at 04:02 PM
You're welcome, Maureen. Glad you liked it.
Posted by: Terence Winch | November 16, 2020 at 05:58 PM
Poem like this = my people. Thank you.
Posted by: Gerald Fleming | November 20, 2020 at 12:57 AM
Thanks for the comment, Jerry.
Posted by: Terence Winch | November 20, 2020 at 08:34 AM