Poetry by Olga Dugan

                     Mike Fritcher CC


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The Echo of a Woman 
 
“But she has to be so careful. I tell her to write
the poem about being afraid…”
                                                         --Toi Dericotte
 
 
year after year I’d look into the mirror
content to see my wish for a strange
beautiful woman looking back at me
and just when I’d get the nerve 
to kiss her with some pretty thing 
like a dress to compliment lush curves
a scarf splashing colors—red 
aqua—up to borders of silk or lace
that voice coming from I know not where
would clash against my innermost ear 
words bearing insecurity self-doubt
lack of confidence of common sense 
and that clinging cymbal would cling
cling cling until I saw my vision shrink
back to the stain I wouldn’t want 
showing at work
                              but just today I stood
facing the face of a woman who knew
her pilgrimage through desert to promise 
land had earned her ears to hear other 
voices—from girl-child yearning to visit 
the stars to lady tired of his punch 
and whine to mother wrapping her fists 
around a single income—inspirited
and urging do yourself a kindness
voices tender as sunset gilding a river 
but sharp as the tips of juniper trees
voices the woman I am began to echo 
try try being gentle to you she sang 
and sang            
                           until I saw her beauty

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Ode: To My Native Guardian
 
Walking home those years ago, I knew nothing
of Narcissus or the daffodil’s short spring--
 
…Be taken with yourself,
 
they said to me; Die early, to my mother.
                  (from Natasha Trethewey, “Genus Narcissus”)
 
 
If guilt is your trouble,
let it be no more.
Gather to yourself a bouquet:
violet, peony, gladiolus, 
gardenia, forget-me-not--
hues from dusk to dawn 
to sunflower—a colored 
guard against tint-less 
times, Little One. Leave 
the genus narcissus to me.
Not daffodils, 
but Mother’s daughter, 
golden and brown; 
all of my joy 
grasped in small gentle fists 
held up, held out to me--
the gift, I rest in remembering.

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Olga Dugan is a Cave Canem poet. Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes, her award-winning poems appear in The Southern Quarterly, Virga Poetry, Kweli, E-Verse Radio, The Sunlight Press, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Peacock Journal, Origins, Cave Canem: XIII, The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, Tipton Poetry, and other publications.

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