Virginia Crawford


On Not Being Chosen, Again

The past would suggest that I’d be used to
the way you always choose to look beyond me.
I was the fat girl, last on the team, true.
Nothing could prepare me for what I see.
What if I call my own father an ass?
The man won’t speak to me. This lost mute father
spent years bent and sweating to tend the grass.
Understanding? Just too much bother.
So now, when you do not think to write or call,
when you choose anything not-me
(you’d think I’d have this lonely pattern down,
that I’d stop expecting to dance at the ball)
I thrash, the girl even now wanting to be seen.
There’s still a heart to make that breaking sound.

Identity Crisis

We are almanacs of our selves,
dog-eared and dusty or
fresh, crisp and ever closed.
Mentions of others might
be found in the margins.

We are simmering soup:
White grains of salt dissolve, disappear
still, we taste it on the spoon,
later on your skin.

We are imprinted,
let’s say, experience pressed
into us almost the way
a skeleton under the pressure
of millions of years
disappears but leaves its mark.

We are eyes watching
what we want walk away
in the happy arms of others.
Or they’re blind, and
we hate them even more.

We say, This is my name, They
were my parents, I went to those
schools and I do this job, This
is my name, I grew up in
the city of X, This is my name,
This is my name…

But what if, while walking
to or from the photocopier,
we brushed shoulders or hips
or elbows and our names slid
like magnets pulled
from one mate to another,
what if our names
exchanged themselves?



Reader,

Lean a little closer, I want
to give you something
soft: a blanket, a wish, a gold
heart-shaped locket.

Few of us are lucky
in love or money, so
think of this as a charm,
a spell cast or a trinket
for your neck or wrist.

You’ve met some
whose bank accounts are
bursting, whose fridge is never
less than full. And, it seems, they
always have a circle of friends
with gleaming glasses raised.
And good for them.

But, more than likely, here’s the secret,
you're like me and I’m like you and
we’re all brokenhearted. Even
the lucky ones. We drink and avoid
the eyes reflected in the glass, laugh
when our hands go unshaken and
make, for the fifth year in a row,
the very same resolutions or
we simply turn toward
the more comfortable dark.

It’s hard to look at gold and see
yourself, but it’s soft and warm and
true, like a blanket and love, and
even if this is as close as we
ever come to meeting,
please take this wish, see it
smile as it shakes your hand. Go on,
open the curtains to the sun and
your delicious brokenheartedness.
Raise your good human face.


Virginia Crawford was born in Baltimore City. She is a graduate of Emerson College and the University of St. Andrews. She teaches poetry workshops through the Maryland State Arts Council and enjoys reading her work to the public. Her poems and/or fiction have appeared in Gargoyle, Potomac Review, The Potomac, Maryland Poetry Review, Baltimore's City Paper, Pirene's Fountain, The Mas Tequila Review and others. She co-edited Poetry Baltimore: poems about a city, with her husband, Sam Schmidt. Her first collection of poetry, Touch, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.
Learn more about her poetry workshops for elementary students at: http://virginiacrawford.intuitwebsites.com