Two Poems by Maya Pindyck

By Guest Contributor on May 7, 2014

By Maya Pindyck

The Count

His command: Hold out your hand.

Grabs her palm, the shade

of white asparagus. Shoves in it

a wad of bills. Count them. Too high,

she tries, adjusting her New Year’s

tiara, to focus her tired eyes.

Her thin frame slips forward,

overcome with trash bags

ripping at the seams, rivers

piled to her knees: ketchup

packs. Bottle caps. Never

mind. His hot tongue smears

each green leaf to smack into

her limp cup—Let. Me.

One. Two. Three.

Ms. Understood

To be as close to a bee

as possible seems to me

a fine way to be—

queen or common jacket,

honey drenched, amber

wench, breezily trapezing

between daisies. Never lazy.

I would be the kind who keeps

her stinger safe. Just in case.

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Maya Pindyck’s collection of poems, Friend Among Stones (New Rivers Press 2009), received the Many Voices Project Award, and her chapbook, Locket, Master (Poetry Society of America 2006), won a PSA Chapbook Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in Memorious, Prairie Schooner, Bellingham Review, Narrative Magazine, and elsewhere. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College’s MFA program, she is currently in the PhD program for English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.