Poetry by Irene Cooper

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in defense of the woman who said fuck thank you at the friends & family meeting at rehab


to she who doesn’t need me
        to defend her legacy--

bright-bratty refusal to cotton 
  to easy kindnesses proffered

                          small industrial cookies
crumbling under their dry conditions

the beautiful poet says I’m excited it’s not over
      indicating there might be time yet to recover

what’s been lost                  i don’t know 
what was pried & taken from her fists

the french philosopher says there is no generosity
                                                                without anonymity

                 the giver, even, can’t know 
gratitude when it spits in their face

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Irene Cooper’s writings appear in The Feminist Wire, phoebe, Denver Quarterly, The Rumpus, Witness, and elsewhere. She wrote Found, crime noir set in Colorado, Committal, poet-friendly speculative spyfy about family, and spare change, finalist for the Stafford/Hall award. Irene teaches in community and supports AIC-directed creative writing at a regional prison in Oregon.