Three Poems by Molly Brodak (1980-2020)

We have decided to run these three poems to commemorate the life and work of former Kennesaw State professor Molly Brodak, who passed away this past Sunday, March 8, 2020. Molly was an acclaimed poet and nonfiction writer, and a talented and beloved teacher. She will be deeply missed.

The Living Daylights 

You could say The Entombment, 1501
is unfinished,

and explain away John the Baptist's big breasts
and weird fluorescent orange robe.

You could lose the good grey in that kind of afternoon.
At the foot of Christ, the frowning girl checks her cell phone.

If background doesn't matter-looks all around like vague hills, then why
is Jesus marble-pale, except for his pink penis exactly at the center of everyone; why should

the bare wound in the plane be for Mary. Michelangelo hoped for ultramarine from Afghanistan
to baffle that gap. But he never tried black, nor dotted pillbugs in nooks.

God likes a nook. See how pain moves. From one chest to arms, wrists, then start again
at the next man. Mary's void could also hold a little battle, or dead star-

always meanwhile, John looks at ugly olive Mary Magdalene, figuring her body
up under it all.   

Said So 

O I heard you.
I meant to make a coat for smoke. They flock to poke a floating coat.

How hope halves: I planned to fake a plan to halt.
I had to hate my hand to rot. But brains bash,

and cope without a seventh thought
and caught without a slot to talk, no words grew.

Lock Nest Monster 

Outside, the sound of branches in wind,
a woman's voice

like the chopping of apples.
The house is icy.

The good question is always a how.
The walls are impossible.

A freak perfection in a woman baffles,
consumes, then she is just a mother,

with enough sense to cut away
a still-lovely dead foot.

How can I care so little
for myself now?

Then she is a soggy wool muffler
I have nowhere to hang.

At once, timelessness.
As recognizable as the sea.

A photo of us on the shore,
her in a thin coat and smiling.   

First published by superstition [review]. Reprinted with permission.