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the poet
Award-winning poet, writer and intuitive artist Karen Pierce Gonzalez is the author of several chapbooks and poetic librettos. These include Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs, Moon kissed Earth wrought Vision drunk, Down River with Li Po, Mountains of Ocean: 10 Waves and RavenSong. Sun and Moon Wired Together is forthcoming from Midsummer Dream House. Karen is also a performance poet, and several of her one-act plays have been staged at San Francisco Bay Area fringe festivals. She publishes the Ekphrastic Folk Art flipbook, co-hosts North Bay Poetics, and hosted The Broken Spine Arts' #NotJustPretty.
the poems
Fortunee’s Mandolin
My maternal grandmother’s mandolin lies in a bed of wet brown-green seaweed at my feet. Most of the strings broken; hardwood varnish licked off by salt water. Its melodies meant only for the man she had to leave behind.
Did the bowl-back instrument slip from her hands as the ship entered the New York harbor? Did it ride the crest of outgoing tides carrying it forward five decades—cold, damp, and swollen — to me?
Her cross-country train ride, Ellis Island to San Francisco, ended on the eve of High Holy Days. The arranged wedding to a stranger had to happen quickly. Borrowed dress, hem hand-stitched with prayers for happiness.
I think of that when my fingers, thin like hers, lightly trace the mandolin’s slim neck.
a sea breeze whistles
eddies of memory swirl
briny notes play long
In a Bird Cage
Strong coffee, my paternal grandmother Ruby’s favorite. Boiling liquid poured slowly into her favorite cup, thick and hand-painted like her. Then condensed milk, easy to store in very small spaces, stirred in.
With broad strokes, she spoon-mixes the two until hot and cold meld.
Battered hands rubbing the mug’s decorative buds, she whistles to her canary wake up. When it warbles back, Ruby sits on their shared plaid perch and sips while it sings.
winter blooms stay closed
morning sunlight too late
petals won’t blossom
Last Mother-Daughter talk
The telephone cables between us stretch from San Francisco to Seattle. Long-distance tollgates intercept phrases, disconnect sighs from gasps.
Our taut voices travel through conductors semi-muffled, sometimes slipping out through cracks in sun-blistered rubber coatings.
The entirety of what you say after Daughter drops.
Was it I’m sorry?
forget-me-nots bloom
wild grasses lay down their blades
westerly clouds drift away
Publishing credits
Fortunee’s Mandolin / Last Mother-Daughter Talk:
exclusive first publication by iamb
In a Bird Cage: GAS: Poetry, Art and Music (Feb 16th 2023)