Three Poems by Kelley White

Home	Locke I do not want the happiness god. A god-damn toy with every meal, candy with breakfast, entertainment wasting our glassbox minds while the children of brave mothers scratch hungry sticks in the dirt. I will feed myself bullets before I wish you happiness pray for your open eyes instead, meaning- ful work, a faithful leading; picture you sitting with your precious things gone to thorns and sticks beside your naked hip.
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	No mirror in my waiting room No coat racks. No toys. No candy. I am selling time and this brain packed with Latinate facts for nothing no one pays for my opinion here except with their own time waiting in my sullen waiting room knowing what they know I am worthless my time sold even cheaper than theirs my life so little valued so little wasted on me. I charge no high fees. No white coat. No power. No respect.
	Oh Dr. Lee you caught me in your lens with my back backed up against a mirrored corner of the mirrored room and worse– reflection–the night sky’s mirrored windows–oh, too many, Dr. Lee, all those women with hunched shoulders and tight smiles, fists clenched at their hips such seas and seas of broken old women: I must still be bent light somewhere out past the solstice

Kelley White is a mother of three, Quaker, inner-city pediatrician for more than twenty years, collector of stray animals and seeker after Buddha nature. Her two full-length poetry collections, The Patient Presents and Late, were published by The People's Press. Her two chapbooks, I am going to walk toward the sanctuary by Dolorosa Press and Against Medical Advice, were put out by Pudding House.

Copyright 2004, Kelley White. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.