Rooftop Poetry Club - Cheryl Chambers

Cheryl Chambers

Bio:
Cheryl Chambers is currently working toward her M.A. in English at Buffalo State College. She earned her Ed.M. in English Education and a B.A. in English at the University at Buffalo. Her poetry has been published in Buffalo's Artvoice, Tipton Poetry Journal, and The Binnacle, among others. She also currently reads for the flash fiction publication Vestal Review.

Poems:

Mommy Doesn’t

Mommy doesn’t really cook, just opens
the packages, heats the stove
to make steam crawl down her face.
A drop rests on her chin
wiggling and clinging as if it loves
her. Someday, she says, we won’t
have to worry about the condensation
of scalding particles.

The Aunts and the Cleaning Woman

The aunts spill disappointment
waiting for me to cry
tears like paratroopers. I don’t give them
reason to pretend they have fallen
as if freefalling in sleep, jerking their legs.
The aunts drop garbage like babies
in a nursery screaming while the cleaning
lady sleeps, dreaming
notes, sales receipts, and middle class salaries.
In the morning she wakes to speed
down dirt roads with Lysol and soiled linens.

Frida and Time

At the precise moment of yearning
the woman appeared with her hip- hugging jeans and displayed a patch
just above her pelvis and a butterfly
above the throbbing heart
sinking from her ribcage,
detailing paint like Frida Kahlo
with a mass and mess of blood,
tubes and unity
within the di-
vision.