I’m waiting for you like waiting

By Arisa White

for all the bottles to simultaneously

burst on the bottle tree. Together like

one distraught chord hardened in our

siamesed neck. Play me, but you rarely

press pass the woman bored. You think

my universe has gone dim? It’s hellish

bright if you’re willing. You always doubt

what you pull from the well—water now

frightens you. Come take me to town

before I turn into a ladybug, spotted for

the years it took to nurse your deuces.

Arisa White is a Cave Canem fellow, an MFA graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is the author of the chapbooks Disposition for Shininess and Post Pardon, as well as the full-length collections Hurrah’s Nest and A Penny Saved. Her debut collection, Hurrah’s Nest, was nominated for a 44th NAACP Image Award and is a finalist for the 82nd California Book Awards. Co-editor for HER KIND, an online literary community powered by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, and the editorial manager for Dance Studio Life magazine, Arisa has received residencies, fellowships, or scholarships from Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, Rose O’Neill Literary House, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Hedgebrook, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Prague Summer Program, Fine Arts Work Center, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2005, her poetry has been widely published and is featured on the recording WORD with the Jessica Jones Quartet. Arisa is a native New Yorker, living in Oakland, CA, with her partner. For more information visit arisawhite.com or facebook.com/Arisapage.