Brenda Coultas




        Two White Shirts Drying on the Mantel

Could have been a hundred years ago
When bricks had names

Two white shirts drying on the murderous fireplace
Clean as can be

The artist painted
dripping blood
often in a rage
He would do this for hours
other times,
pleasantly tripping and drunk

The two white
shirts are pleasantly
bleached into
Innocence 

Write darkly
As young people do
And stop thinking,
it would be an accomplishment to do so

Despite the pleasures of making sense
Must be how a STOP sign feels
Always consistent

Even without
an audience
 




In the mid-90s, Brenda Coultas moved to New York City to work on the staff of the Poetry Project. Her poetry can be found in the anthology Other Influences: Essays on Feminist Avant-garde Poetic Lineages.  Her latest collection, The Writing of an Hour, an ars poetica, was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2022.