Blessing Name

All this year we sat after dinner, afghans across
our knees, caught up in our gyres, as if we wore
leg bands embossed with our calamity names:
the ones whose child died, the diabetic,
the college drop-out, the underemployed, the widow.
 
Then in an old, cloth-bound library book we found --
in a black and white plate -- a raft of turkeys, trapped
under what they call a rocket net. To calm them
the trappers covered the net with pillow cases
 
and Thursday, in a surfeit of pie: pecan and apple,
pumpkin and squash, we yanked our tensioners
and found ourselves retagged with our blessing names:
the ones who just won a Fulbright, the dauntless editor,
the young woman plying a trade, the retiree, the epicure.

 About the Writer

Judy Swann has a book of poetry forthcoming from Aldrich Press and a book of essays from John Young. She lives and loves in gorgeous Ithaca, NY.