Melissa Andrés
Poet
About
New College Campus/Ringling Museum
Melissa Andrés, originally from Cuba, arrived in the
United States at the age of six. She has worked as an educator and taught English as a second language. She holds an MFA
in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College.
Her work has appeared in The Laurel Review,
Rattle Magazine,
The San Antonio Review, Inkwell Journal,
Ligeia Magazine,
Burningword Literary Journal,
West Trade Review,
and elsewhere. Her Poem
"The Poisoned Horse" was
nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Her influences include:
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edgar Allan Poe
Virginia Woolf
William Blake
Agnes Varda
Salvador Dali
Elizabeth Bishop
Seamus Heaney
Lucille Clifton
T'ao Ch'ien
Claudia Emerson
Jose Marti
My Mother's Daybed
My mother stirred a kettle
of yucca and yams
over a low fire,
smoke rising from embers,
hints of cedar cloaking the air.
I sat on the porch and swung my legs.
My curiosity provoked
my mother's anger when I dangled
my hair over the ashes
to watch them burn.
My brother, his head stuck
between two branches,
was choking. My father,
glancing out the window,
saw him between strokes of his razor.
He saved my brother, carried
him over the mudflat
where we waited. Mounds of clay
cluttered the terrace.
A herd of cattle dotted the field.
My gaze landed
on an ant
carrying a grain of sugar
across the boots
my father left behind.
That night, outside
on my mother's daybed, a firefly
crawled into my ear
and the image of my brother's head
hovered near the rail.
Published in the Laurel Review
Vol 51.1
Links to poetry:
For any media inquiries or bookings, please contact Melissa Andrés:
Contact
Follow me:
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My Mother's Daybed
My mother stirred a kettle
of yucca and yams
over a low fire,
smoke rising from embers,
hints of cedar cloaking the air.
I sat on the porch and swung my legs.
My curiosity provoked
my mother's anger when I dangled
my hair over the ashes
to watch them burn.
My brother, his head stuck
between two branches,
was choking. My father,
glancing out the window,
saw him between strokes of his razor.
He saved my brother, carried
him over the mudflat
where we waited. Mounds of clay
cluttered the terrace.
A herd of cattle dotted the field.
My gaze landed
on an ant
carrying a grain of sugar
across the boots
my father left behind.
That night, outside
on my mother's daybed, a firefly
crawled into my ear
and the image of my brother's head
hovered near the rail.
Published in the Laurel Review
Vol 51.1
Links to poetry:
For any media inquiries or bookings, please contact Melissa Andrés:
Contact
Follow me:
