Dorianne Laux

Dorianne Laux (1952- ) born in Augusta, Maine. She received a BA from Mills College in 1988. Dorianne has a new book of concise craft essays and exercises for poets ‘Finger Exercises for Poets’ and a new book of poems titled: Life on Earth. She has taught creative writing at the University of Oregon, Pacific University, and North Carolina State University; she has also led summer workshops at Esalen in Big Sur. Dorianne has won many awards and received many fellowships.

The Weight of Days 

Sometimes the months can be weighed

like pounds, twelve in a year.  What weighs

twelve pounds?  One chair. One dog.

Seven crates of tomatoes. One month old

baby.  A double neck guitar someone

shreds ruthlessly, the band behind

trying to keep up.  Sometimes the months

drag, drug like a chair across the dry dirt

of days.  Some years come at a price.

Some marked down, on sale, tagged

“as is”.  Some days line up like siblings

against a wall, each waiting their turn

to be smacked with a ruler.  Or time

can be a beam of light which travels

faster than sound, fastest through air,

slower through water or glass.  A dog

lies on the grass, wagging its tail

until someone comes along

and frees the chain, a key

pressed into the metallic dark.

A year can be a truck on the interstate

loaded with seven crates of tomatoes,

the driver’s wife at home

holding a month-old baby.  Some days

there’s no room for another minute. 

Some years there’s not enough room

for the days.

— Dorianne Laux