Issue #12 - The Poet's Wife, Pt. 1
The Poet’s Wife, Pt. 1
My wife negotiating with contractors at a commercial building site.
In 2019, my wife and I visited New York City with a couple of friends. It was our first trip to New York, and I insisted on visiting the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
The iconic art museum is an inverted ziggurat; an upside-down tower of Babel. As a product of modernism, it bears all of the modernists’ hubris. If Babel was attempting to reach heaven, then the Guggenheim, commissioned as a “temple of the spirit”, aimed to capture heaven and pull it down to earth. An act akin to naming a ship after the titans.
Nevertheless, the human capacity to design beautiful, functional structures with metaphysical aspirations is truly a marvel. These works warrant our attention, even if they look like the Giant Potter in the Sky accidentally dropped an urn.
I’m a high school English teacher. We would not vacation in New York City and visit the Guggenheim on my salary. My wife is the broker of a real estate company, and she works harder and longer than just about anybody I know. I often joke that when Katie goes to work in the morning, light bulbs burn brighter because of the energy she produces. She makes a living that is more comfortable than either of us ever imagined, given our upbringings.
But work has a way of changing our bodies. My father-in-law, who for decades has daily pushed a lawnmower across acres of yards, has had one knee and both hips replaced. He also has had a valve in his heart replaced, and titanium jacks separate a few of his vertebrae. At 62, he can still work circles around me. So my wife comes from a stock of people that knows the world through work.
While we were at the museum, she received a phone call from a client. Their deal was falling apart, and they were distraught. None of it was my wife’s fault. But she immediately began making phone calls to salvage the deal. I know when she goes into work mode to leave her alone, so while she paced 1/4-mile, vertical laps around the Guggenheim coaxing various involved parties to do their jobs, I wound up in front of Picasso’s Woman Ironing.
Woman Ironing
For Katie
Dip the brush in blue-gray laundry wa-
ter, tint of potash lye. Wash the can-
vas woven from the same linen as
the laundry to be ironed. Fold pain-
ted wrinkles to be smoothed forever
work undone. Press her in severe lines,
valueless drape sweat starched, sweeter un-
heard hiss of steam, laundress of quiet-
ness ravaged, made crooked by the work.
In what ways will our work shape our bodies, these genius structures, godlike urns?
Some News
My poem “A Corrections Officer Quarantines at the Clements Unit” was recently published in the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, Volume 17. The Covid shutdown hit all universities, including Tarleton State which published the Langdon Review, just as their team of editors was beginning to piece together their annual review. At the same time, Laurence Musgrove at Angelo State University began quietly asking writers to send poems as a snapshot of the times in Texas. He published them under the heading Tejascovido. By June, he’d published nearly 130 poems including mine. The Langdon Review compiled 30 for this year’s issue. I spent this week’s evenings on Zoom, meeting and reading with these poets. There are some remarkable people in the world. I’m grateful to have been a part of it.
In the next issue, I’ll continue with The Poet’s Wife, Pt. 2. If you loved something in this issue, let me know–or better yet, let someone else know.
I’m Seth Wieck. Thanks for the company.