Matthea Harvey
Matthea Harvey was born in 1973 in Bad Homburg, Germany, grew up in England and Wisconsin, and attended Harvard University and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry 2003, Denver Quarterly, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Harvey’s two collections are Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form (Alice James, 2000) and Sad Little Breathing Machine (Graywolf, 2004), a finalist for The Academy of American Poets James Laughlin Award. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn, teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, and serves as the Poetry Editor of American Letters & Commentary.
Abandoned Conversation with the Senses
In the back they are collecting
bullets so do you really want to talk
about love? When a bee is on my chin
should I not mind it? Shall I let
the pretty water sink the boat?
Learn something from me for once
will you. A tent inside the barn
may be just what we need.
The bull shakes the snow off its back.
Yes its meat is nice to eat.
No it’s not a snowstorm.
All this explaining exhausts me.
I’ll be leaving some traps in the forest.
Do come admire the trees.
Our Square of Lawn
From the parrot’s perch
the view is always Hello.
We try not to greet one
another. When the boys come
after school I shout
“You are not cameras”
at them & they run away.
Fact will muzzle anything.
I look at myself in
a spoon & I am just
a head. Never learned
how to make ringlets—
was always too literal.
The trees are covered
with tiny dead bouquets.
The ducks have been eating
grass with chemicals on it,
ignoring the signs. At night
from our glass-fronted box
we watch them glow.
It is the closest we come
to dreaming.
Ideas Go Only So Far
Last year I made up a baby. I made her in the shape of a hatbox or a cake. I could have iced her & no one would have been the wiser. You know how trained elephants will step onto a little round platform, cramming all four fat feet together? That’s her too, & the fez on the elephant’s head. Applause all around. There was no denying I had made a good baby. I gave her a sweet face, a pair of pretty eyes, & a secret trait at her christening. I set her on my desk, face up, & waited. I watched her like a clock. I didn’t coo at her though. She wasn’t that kind of baby.
She never got any bigger, but she did learn to roll. Her little flat face went round & round. On her other side, her not-face rolled round & round too.
She followed me everywhere. When I swam, she floated in the swimming pool, a platter for the sun. When I read, she was my peacefully blinking footstool. She fit so perfectly into the washing machine that perhaps I washed her more than necessary. But it was wonderful to watch her eyes slitted against the suds, a stray red sock swishing about her face like the tongue of some large animal.
When you make up a good baby, other people will want one too. Who’s to say that I’m the only one who deserves a dear little machine-washable ever-so-presentable baby. Not me. So I made a batch. But they weren’t exactly like her—they were smaller & without any inborn dread. Sometimes I see one rolling past my window at sunset—quite unlike my baby, who like any good idea, eventually ended up dead.
Definition of Weather
| (abbr.) | W. |
| (accus.) | You little wretch. |
| (anat.) | Organs of indeterminate rumbling. |
| (attrib. false) Ashbery | My charming weather-wuss, I’ll wed you in Anatolia. |
| (bibl.) | Elijah asked the brothers to stop throwing stones at their sister. They did not stop. The next day an asteroid killed their pet rabbit. |
| (cinetamog.) | The Divan’s Demise—real-time footage of raindrops coming through the window & staining a lavender velvet sofa. (129 min.) |
| (colloq.) “under the weather” | Aren’t we all. |
| (culin.) | Pancake ice. |
| (demons.) | Zeus, this is the unnecessary storm I was talking about. |
| (ellip.) | Ergo. |
| (exclam.) | Your oracular bones! |
| (fem.) | Hurricane Helen |
| (hist.) | Queen Victoria’s coronation: raindrops break & enter into what had been ordained A Fine Day. |
| (mil.) | Cloud Formations |
| (ornithol.) | Initially canaries were thought to fall from the clouds after a tropical storm. |
| (poet.) | Reverse ascension. |
| (sl.) tornadoes & hurricanes | Cones ’n Canes |
| (theol.) | Yes. |
Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form
1.
Pity the bathtub that belongs to the queen its feet
Are bronze casts of the former queen’s feet its sheen
A sign of fretting is that an inferior stone shows through
Where the marble is worn away with industrious
Polishing the tub does not take long it is tiny some say
Because the queen does not want room for splashing
The maid thinks otherwise she knows the king
Does not grip the queen nightly in his arms there are
Others the queen does not have lovers she obeys
Her mother once told her your ancestry is your only
Support then is what she gets in the bathtub she floats
Never holds her nose and goes under not because
She might sink but because she knows to keep her ears
Above water she smiles at the circle of courtiers below
Her feet are kicking against walls which cannot give
Satisfaction at best is to manage to stay clean
2.
Pity the bathtub its forced embrace of the whims of
One man loves but is not loved in return by the object
Of his affection there is little to tell of his profession
There is more for it is because he works with glass
That he thinks things are clear (he loves) and adjustable
(she does not love) he knows how to take something
Small and hard and hot and make room for
His breath quickens at night as he dreams of her he wants
To create a present unlike any other and because he cannot
Hold her he designs something that can a bathtub of
Glass shimmers red when it is hot he pours it into the mold
In a rush of passion only as it begins to cool does it reflect
His foolishness enrages him he throws off his clothes meaning
To jump in and lie there but it is still too hot and his feet propel
Him forward he runs from one end to the other then falls
To the floor blisters begin to swell on his soft feet he watches
His pain harden into a pretty pattern on the bottom of the bath
3.
Pity the bathtub its forced embrace of the human
Form may define external appearance but there is room
For improvement within try a soap dish that allows for
Slippage is inevitable as is difference in the size of
The subject may hoard his or her bubbles at different
Ends of the bathtub may grasp the sponge tightly or
Loosely it may be assumed that eventually everyone gets in
The bath has a place in our lives and our place is
Within it we have control of how much hot how much cold
What to pour in how long we want to stay when to
Return is inevitable because we need something
To define ourselves against even if we know that
Whenever we want we can pull the plug and get out
Which is not the case with our own tighter confinement
Inside the body oh pity the bathtub but pity us too