Forklift, Ohio

PATRIOT
by Laurie Saurborn Young

32 pages, soft cover, stapled

$5 (First Class postage paid)

REVIEWS

JUNE 2013 - HTML GIANT 

"The poems are bold, but they are not cocky or smug. They are not shouting at us. The inverted syntax and enjambments allow us to hear the internal voice of an American woman who feels genuine fear for her safety and her rights ... By the end, the speaker has not just performed a civic, patriotic duty: she has taken care of herself, wearied and resilient. Patriot is a song America needs to hear."  Click to read more »

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laurie Saurborn Young is the author of Carnavoria, a book of poems (H_NGM_N BKS, 2012). She lives in Austin, Texas.

from PATRIOT

PATRIOT

Emergency room nurses debating

Glocks versus 22s while my husband cannot

Breathe again is America.

Is the boy next door, hitting himself in the head with a stick.

Prometheus, are you seeing this?

No fix, just day-to-day.

Smoky wall, smudged glass, a bite of lemon peel.

Thicket of economy, I want more.

This is America and I will not dance at the country

Club, I will run into the fields & stand with Carmen

Who once cut tobacco in the Piedmont summer.

Somewhere I am sixteen and some

How I am failing my driver's

Test because I cannot back up for twenty

Feet in a straight line.

Demi-plié, toe shoes on a dusty stage.

My ex was a cheerleader so therefore on

He remarked to great acclaim.

No answers in the clouds the clouds

Never answer because an answer is not the point.

Blue woman in the painting her mind is not tacked down.

This is America and I am still waiting to be taken

Out of context.