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Chella Courington
With a Ph.D. in British and American literature,
Chella Courington graduated from the
University of South Carolina where she studied
with James Dickey. She has taught literature
and writing in a range of venues: the South
Carolina Maximum Security Prison for Men,
Illinois State University, Huntingdon College,
and Santa Barbara City College. In 2002 she
migrated to California with an Economist turned
fiction writer and two cats. After years of writing
academic articles and reviews, Chella returned
to poetry and earned an MFA from New
England College, studying with Eleni Sikelianos
and Joan Larkin. Chella’s recent poetry
appears or is forthcoming in Gargoyle
Magazine, Pirene’s Fountain, Iguana Review,
wicked alice and Mademoiselle’s Fingertips.
Chella Courington graduated from the
University of South Carolina where she studied
with James Dickey. She has taught literature
and writing in a range of venues: the South
Carolina Maximum Security Prison for Men,
Illinois State University, Huntingdon College,
and Santa Barbara City College. In 2002 she
migrated to California with an Economist turned
fiction writer and two cats. After years of writing
academic articles and reviews, Chella returned
to poetry and earned an MFA from New
England College, studying with Eleni Sikelianos
and Joan Larkin. Chella’s recent poetry
appears or is forthcoming in Gargoyle
Magazine, Pirene’s Fountain, Iguana Review,
wicked alice and Mademoiselle’s Fingertips.
Don’t Make Love Under a Full Moon
October in Illinois, she asked if I lied about sex. Handed me a jello
shot, saying to chase it with something sweeter.
She pulled Mrs. Dalloway down from the shelf.
Sometimes I lied. First time in a car, back ached for days. When he
squealed, I dug my nails in his shoulder, his dick
spraying my belly. Don’t want you knocked up, he said.
Knocked out was more like it, squished between him & sticky
vinyl exuding musk that hung on my hair. One summer at Exxon a boy
brushed the nozzle against my calf.
Sally stopped, picked a flower.
Climbing into his backseat, I always lied. Batting ruptured beneath
us, and I never felt my insides shake.
Sally kissed her on the lips.
Under a harvest moon, she tossed a silk rose. Lips curved around
mine, fumbling toward oblivion.
At the Maximum Security Prison for Men
Students come to me from solitary confinement
concrete oven set on high—
they come to me
a young woman from the University
who wants to talk about Paradise Lost.
They want to talk too.
Tony says when he broke in, he spotted a dog
and shot a man. Thought the house empty.
Billy Ray says he just needed money from the girl
at the ATM. My hand shook and the trigger went off.
They know why Milton’s God
clips Satan’s wings and kicks him out of heaven.
The man can’t take much lip. Just like my own daddy
knocking me three ways into Sunday when I say no to him.
Knuckles kneading my cheek blue till I cry stop.
The students ask if Satan’s the hero. And I wonder.
Did he endure that heavy hand one too many times?
Punched and mauled like a yard animal
taken behind the barn
left in darkness to find his way back.
Queen’s Bird
Two of each—cup, saucer, bread plate
in lukewarm water, I wash away
thirty years of dust since Mother died.
At 42, ovarian cancer like Queen Mary.
Bloody Mary quite contrary
why leave your subjects crushed?
I thought I’d run into Mother if I traveled:
Chicago, Barbados, Edinburgh.
Against the sun, I raise the porcelain
eyeing it for chips and cracks. Bone china
fired from bone ash like Mother’s gray powder
handed me in a bronze urn.
Or is this cup with songbird glazed in blue
mere clay: my lips where once were hers.
October in Illinois, she asked if I lied about sex. Handed me a jello
shot, saying to chase it with something sweeter.
She pulled Mrs. Dalloway down from the shelf.
Sometimes I lied. First time in a car, back ached for days. When he
squealed, I dug my nails in his shoulder, his dick
spraying my belly. Don’t want you knocked up, he said.
Knocked out was more like it, squished between him & sticky
vinyl exuding musk that hung on my hair. One summer at Exxon a boy
brushed the nozzle against my calf.
Sally stopped, picked a flower.
Climbing into his backseat, I always lied. Batting ruptured beneath
us, and I never felt my insides shake.
Sally kissed her on the lips.
Under a harvest moon, she tossed a silk rose. Lips curved around
mine, fumbling toward oblivion.
At the Maximum Security Prison for Men
Students come to me from solitary confinement
concrete oven set on high—
they come to me
a young woman from the University
who wants to talk about Paradise Lost.
They want to talk too.
Tony says when he broke in, he spotted a dog
and shot a man. Thought the house empty.
Billy Ray says he just needed money from the girl
at the ATM. My hand shook and the trigger went off.
They know why Milton’s God
clips Satan’s wings and kicks him out of heaven.
The man can’t take much lip. Just like my own daddy
knocking me three ways into Sunday when I say no to him.
Knuckles kneading my cheek blue till I cry stop.
The students ask if Satan’s the hero. And I wonder.
Did he endure that heavy hand one too many times?
Punched and mauled like a yard animal
taken behind the barn
left in darkness to find his way back.
Queen’s Bird
Two of each—cup, saucer, bread plate
in lukewarm water, I wash away
thirty years of dust since Mother died.
At 42, ovarian cancer like Queen Mary.
Bloody Mary quite contrary
why leave your subjects crushed?
I thought I’d run into Mother if I traveled:
Chicago, Barbados, Edinburgh.
Against the sun, I raise the porcelain
eyeing it for chips and cracks. Bone china
fired from bone ash like Mother’s gray powder
handed me in a bronze urn.
Or is this cup with songbird glazed in blue
mere clay: my lips where once were hers.
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