Whitney Vaughan
O Joy, Mouths the Muse to Her Suitor
It’s not enough that you love me, you dry stump of a half- wit, half-burned by your love for me. Better that you should define me, put me in your sentence, and attach to me your secret meanings. Like: “a traitor is one who prefers to embalm the words and destroy the act of making love.” Then, we will see eye to eye. Even better than that is that you should pick apart my artifice, my vertical pretensions, my longitudinal lies – but you swoon in their milky tide, like I were the Rapture, my rain of frogs coming down on you to scramble your heart like a daily crossword or prayer.
Whitney Vaughan is the recent recipient of a fellowship to complete her M.F.A. in Poetry at North Carolina State University, with poets John Balaban and Dorianne Laux. Her poetry has been published in Asheville Poetry Review and XNK. Although she has written for more than half her life, her newfound interest in photography is proving to be a better cash crop than poetry, alas. She resides in Durham, NC, in a seriously slanted apartment.
