The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog
To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God’s love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow
To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended
skirt
To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other dogs
can smell it
Alicia Ostriker, a poet and critic, has published eleven
volumes of poetry, including The Volcano Sequence
and No Heaven. Her poetry has appeared in The
New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, Paris
Review, Yale Review, Ontario Review, The Nation, and
many other journals and anthologies, and has been
translated into numerous languages including Hebrew and
Arabic. Twice a National Book Award finalist, she has also
received awards from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller
Foundations, the Poetry Society of America, the San
Francisco Poetry Center, and the Paterson Poetry Center,
among others.