About the Poems - PMH
About the Poems
by Paula Mendoza-Hanna "A Good Girl" is her disclaimer, her denial and her plea. "Fuzzy Looking Glass" is Alice obsessed. Her lover was a bogus shaman & catchpenny illusionist. A pulp-novel pirate and conspirator who bedded, and left her. She relives, re-contextualizes and ultimately reverses his denial and her humiliation. "Alys" is another curious body—incarnation—here animated by Chaucer and Shakespeare. She keeps and nurses a brood of prodigals. She is certain her obsessions will only renew and never ruin her. She believes in fire, but not light. "The Watcher" likes looking at the wife. The Watcher thinks she is ethereal, thinks she is too beautiful to be real. The Watcher only wants to keep her. I've asked it too, haven't you? Can I keep her, please? Can I? "Reading Script" is a spell. Say it three times over a lit red candle and the object of your affection will think you are your words, and fall mad—