Diana Whitney
Winter 2023 | Poetry
Three Poems
A COMPLEX OF LABORATORIES & HABITATS
The dirty iceberg by the back door
won’t melt till April but today
sugaring season is over
No more clear cold sap drunk straight
from the bucket elixir flowing
like an alpine stream my face pressed
to the metal lip the veins of spring open the trees
offering up their sweetness for days weeks
the holding tanks full of it
as you boiled at night by headlamp & starshine
as the space station arced above us
burning like a meteor
orbiting earth at seven kilometers per second
fifteen sunrises a day
Were the astronauts up there floating
or sleeping running on treadmills
or eating silver packets of space ice cream?
Did they dream of us below standing by the boil
wreathed in woodsmoke & maple steam?
We are specks
on a blue-green planet
March was cold & sweet & brutal
then it turned Sudden heat
I gather sap bare-armed in a cotton tee
haul the wagon through boggy mud ruts
In the pails a scattering
of drowned ants & beetles The last sap
is cloudy & oily some yellow as piss
It’s not like love
or childhood When it’s over
you’ll know it’s over
GIRL TROUBLE
When the trouble began she was barely
eleven. When the trouble began she was barely
undressed. Smooth conch shell no longer quite hairless,
bubble gum blowpop mouth precocious as a book cover,
furtive gaze from her parents’ shelf. Watch her lay out
her outfit for daily execution, jelly flats & new body
wave, crushes stringing her throat like a candy necklace,
overpowering sadness & elation like two invisible
potions sniffed quick up the nostrils, essence of shame
& strawberry shampoo, depilatory burn of white cream
on her pits. She was troubled & troubling, locked in
with a deadbolt, mixing cassettes of obsession & synth.
No electronica swoon could soothe her syndrome—
call her toxic shock, razorblade, every trapdoor.
TINY STARS
One day when this is over
we will say: do you remember
the morning we brought her home
in April, in the depths of lockdown,
how the grass shivered & she was dropped
into our carrier by a stranger in a mask?
You’d begged for weeks & finally
I conceded, desperate to give you
something alive. Blue-eyed
tiger, stripy fluff-ball who fit
into your cupped palms, she had worms
& fleas but she was purring,
she was ours. All night she slept
in the crook of your neck.
I listened to her crunch her food,
tiny stars. She ate & grew
as the bloodroot bloomed in cold leaves,
the schools never opened,
& the dead bell tolled. Boldly
she dashed out into the gardens,
hungry to know the ripening world.
Later, when we learned
what he had done to you, I knew
I would never forgive myself.
Your cheeks soft and round
as a child’s. Your shoulders set hard
as a mineral vein. Do you remember,
we will say, when the world
changed forever? I could not protect you
but we kept that animal alive.
Diana Whitney writes across the genres in Vermont with a focus on feminism, motherhood, and sexuality. She is editor of the bestselling anthology YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE EVERYTHING: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves, winner of the 2022 Claudia Lewis Award. Her essays, poems and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, The Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, and many more. Her debut collection, Wanting It, won the Rubery Book Award in poetry. Her latest book, Dark Beds, was released in 2023 by June Road Press and explores desire and domesticity, marriage and transgression. An advocate for survivors of sexual violence, Diana works as an editor and writing coach. Find out more: www.diana-whitney.com