MICRO

Three Micros by Merridawn Duckler

"Dante Lecture," "Women," and "Art Guard"

By MERRIDAWN DUCKLER  |  23 NOV 2016

Dante Lecture at My Alma Mater

beside me the pale, anxious boys & taking their hand was like removing a leaf from the mirrored pond & when the speaker cited a page they had the book before them & went right to it though they were now husbands & CEO holding the place with a finger but raising their eyebrows where once they raised their eyes saying where is my guide? I have gone from poet to woman to dog & float on what was a pond no a lake no a river no the ocean no my heart

♦

Women Having Fun Without Me

everywhere

♦

Art Guard

Is there a bathroom? Can I take a picture? The answers are yes and no. Sometimes I switch, out of boredom. Today he was back. I can’t leave. Who would guard the art? But he can come look at me anytime. I sometimes dream the hanging blob falls. I asked to be moved to Floor 2 to guard a bronze doughnut and a pile of shoes. No dice. He takes a picture. I followed him but was blocked by two women arguing about a red neon what it all meant. It’s the exit. Last week he missed a day. No matter. I still believe in art.

Merridawn Duckler is a poet and playwright who lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. She is published or forthcoming in Cirque Journal, Right Hand Pointing, Agave, Sugar House Review, TAB: Journal of Poetry and Poetics, Split Rock Review, Cyclamens and Swords, Storyscape, Burnt Furnace and Zone 3. She was runner-up for the 2014 poetry residency at the Arizona Poetry Center. Her play in verse was in the Emerging Female Playwright Festival of the Manhattan Shakespeare Project. Other work performed at Red Cat at Disney Hall and venues in Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Valdez, Alaska. Her recent fiction is in Farralon Review and Poetica. Her fellowships include NEA, Writers@Work, Yaddo, Squaw Valley Writers, SLS in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Berta Anolic Award in Israel and the Southampton Poetry Conference. She is a Senior Fellow at The Attic Institute, Associate Editor at Narrative Magazine and editor at the international philosophy journal Evental Aesthetics.

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