Two Poems by Melissa Westemeier

Track 17

Hearing that song
makes me want to spin
With arms outstretched
Who cares if I sit alone
At a booth for four
At the Posoh Diner
On highway 10?

The other patrons,
Local and sweaty
Intently discuss
The heat
The county fair
Baseball scores

In the mirror of my mind
I stand and dance
Carried away by music
By the heat
By the memory of a night

When I was younger, prettier, braver
Single, in a short tight skirt
So hot
So single
So ready for love

The man in a John Deere cap
Eats a chocolate sundae
The girl with a pierced eyebrow
Drags on her cigarette
With Cupid’s bow lips
The boy sips steaming coffee,
Scrawny in his wife-beater
He blows
To cool it

The song changes
As does my mood.
The boy looks over,
Returning my smile.
Hot enough for ya?

The Feminine Version of Quantitative Physics

I. Reduction

What she really wants is to experiment with:

Less whining
Less complaining
Less garbage
Less spam
Less shock
Less guilt.

What she’d be happy calculating is:

Less mileage
Less weight
Less responsibility
Less conflict
Less facial hair.
Less hairy legs

She wishes for a chance to engineer:

Fewer dishes to wash
Fewer papers to read
Fewer rooms to vacuum
Fewer toilets to clean.
Fewer…homework sheets to correct
Fewer…clogged toilets

What she’d most enjoy is the analysis of:

Fewer choices
Fewer commercials
Fewer toys to pick up.
Fewer …arguments
Fewer …
Fewer…

She’d be thrilled by a new approach to:

A smaller house
Smaller jeans.
More classes
Time to study
Some dinners out
Free time for friends

II. Augmentation

She’d like to calculate the addition of:

More salt
More sugar
More….
More….
More….
More…

She’d relish a chance for the strategies of:

More silence
More stillness
More moments of bliss
More …beach walking
More…meditation
More…exercise

She’d make good use of the interaction of:

More days off
More help from above
More bottles of wine
More soaks in the tub.
More …star gazing
More …more mountain views

She could use the dynamics of:

Extra solitude
Extra gratitude
Extra charity
Extra crunch
Extra leftovers for lunch.
Extra…

She’d appreciate the simulation of:

Extra sleep
Extra time
Extra laughter
Extra attention
Extra volume
Extra space
Extra…

Melissa Westemeier earned a Master’s degree from UW-Madison. Her essays appear in Clever Magazine, and her poem “The 7-11 at 37” appeared in Strong Verse. She is a contributer to Teaching Writing in High School and College (NCTE) and a co-author of The End of the Book: Writing in a Changing World (Bridle Path Press). Melissa’s current projects include a trilogy about a river town in Wisconsin, restoring a native prairie and woodland on her 60-acre homestead, a chick-lit novel about karate, and figuring out what to make for dinner tonight. She lives with her husband and three young sons in Northeastern Wisconsin You can read more of her work at www.ecowomen.net or at her blog.