The Missing Microwave by Janet Buck

Featured Writer: Janet Buck

The Missing Microwave

The plethora of urgencies
prevented everyone from looking
at the swelling rage beneath the storm.
One leg gone. The other twisted.
On the list and always last,
hips replaced and then rebuilt
like chassis, models of mistakes.
Quilts of epic tears unfolding,
hidden, very buried waves.
Their currents just like seeds in jam
that stuck between the teeth of dreams
and sharpened ways of saving face.
She knew legs were always meant
to come in pairs like knitting needles
resting on the arms of couches.
Knew that one without the other
was a shame augmented always
by the fact that she was sadly pretty,
well, above the waist. They
trained her by example eyes
not to ever look below.
The honest harbor, brutal, still
it taught her what the tea bags
of a mind could do and how to
make her bones behave
the rainbows of an inner voice.
Knives of faith could slice regret,
despite the missing microwaves of
easy motion cutting kitchen time in half,
because they honed their tragic selves
on granite slabs of having empty tombs
for thighs that didn't have another choice.

Janet Buck, Ph.D. is the author of four collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in CrossConnect, Zang Spur Review, Pif Magazine, The Dakota House Journal, The Melic Review, Stirring, Countless Horizons, Ascent, Tapestry, The Rose & Thorn, Avatar Review, pith, Perihelion, In Motion, OffCourse, and hundreds of journals world-wide. In the year 2000, Janet was of ten U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City. Her poem "Acrylic Thighs" was translated into five languages and paired with original artwork. The tour traveled to France, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil, and Japan. In 2001-2002, Buck's poetry is scheduled to appear in PoetryBay, The Montserrat Review, Runes, The Pedestal Magazine, Concrete Wolf, The Carriage House Review, Swagazine, PoetryRepairShop, Slow Trains, Verse Libre Quarterly, Wicked Alice, Facets, Southern Ocean Review, Artemis, The American Muse, and The Pittsburgh Quarterly. Recent awards include The H.G. Wells Award for Literary Excellence, First Place in Kimera's Poetry Contest 2001, Editor's Choice Award for Sol Magazine, and the 2001 Kota Press Anthology Prize. In 2001, Janet's poem "The Teapoy" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by The Pedestal Magazine. Janet Buck is a three-time Pushcart Nominee and the author of four collections of poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Three Candles, Red River, Pierian Springs, Stirring, PoetryBay, Offcourse, Ascent, The American Muse, and hundreds of journals world-wide. In 2002-2003 Buck's poetry is scheduled to appear in Zuzu's Petals Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Gin Bender, Artemis, The Montserrat Review, Recursive Angel, The Foliate Oak, Southern Ocean Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Coelacanth, Cordite, CrossConnect, and The Oklahoma Review.

For links to more of her work, see:

Return to Table of Contents