2 Poems by Julianne Neely

Julianne Neely received her MFA degree from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, where she received the Truman Capote Fellowship, the 2017 John Logan Poetry Prize, and a Schupes Fellowship for Poetry. She is currently a Poetics PhD candidate and an English Department Fellow at the University at Buffalo. Her writing has been published in Hyperallergic, VIDA, The Poetry Project, The Rumpus, The Iowa Review and more.

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WOMAN, IRONING


A man asks me if I have ever seen
Picasso’s Woman Ironing. Yes
and no, it depends on what you mean,
man. I have seen my mother ironing
my father’s shirt while he watches TV,
no willingness to smile, an unruliness
that kicks you in the teeth. Yes, I have seen
a friend, a woman’s face through hot
steam. I have seen myself growing
inside of tree, a root, that’s it. I
count them, the women who I have met
with polymer fiber materials in their chest.
Man, yes, I have seen the painting and no,
I have not and did you know, man,
that modern doctors suspect Picasso
was a sufferer of a disease called Meniere’s
and that is where ideas for his paintings
came from and leave it to a man to make
a billion dollars off of it. I am a woman
and yes, I am bitter while I lose my hearing
and the room spins, and I tell the neurologist
my vision looks like a Picasso painting
and he nods because Picasso paintings are so
damn famous and mercy never arrives
on time to save such grief and I wish
I could see straight but moreso I wish I
could tell the doctor my vision looks like
a Kusama or a Bourgeois or an O’Keefe
but no, it looks like a fucking Picasso
and so back to you, man, yes, I have seen
women ironing and no I have not, but I have
seen women give an hour for every minute
and I am a woman and I have watched
as we have overdrawn a revolution
and I have looked in the mirror as if I am not
supposed to be there so no, man I have
never seen the woman ironing and I never
will run alone at night and never forget
the sound of men laughing and yes, man,
I did see the woman ironing my tongue
smooth so I could not scream, and it is
the little things I hate about his pictures
so small I have nowhere else to store them
but my eyes and to hell with men who make art
I really mean this go ahead and inhale
my saccharine scent and yes, man,
of course I have seen the woman ironing
of course I have not seen it
and if Picasso were here with us, man,
in this room I would see nothing
but he would see me ironing.



How Do You Take Your Coffee, Mr. Armstrong?


Twelve men have pressed airy boots on top the       pubescent surface of the
moon. Forty-six years and       twelve men have pressed airy boots on
top the pubescent surface of the moon.  O irony!  O opportunity to construct

metaphor of man’s hulk yet ethereal foot traipsing upon the budding face       of a womanly moon!
Though, one must keep in mind, they say there
lives  a  man  in       the moon. Who they are I do not know nor

care to       hear what else they have to say. If Earth’s natural satellite
were a man, then surely I        would have seen him opening up
[jars for lesbian households and wearing]       cologne trilling brotherhood. I

would have seen the moon breaking things with        his mouth. Yet, it is suspect
only coming out at night, glaring center attention of
a vast sky. Maybe I am      seeing it—the man in moon

pulling on a cigarette, floating down to       a woman walking       in the park,
twisting his lips with a har har. O Moon Contrite, look
at your hands, I wouldn’t eat off them!       Perhaps no women have

been to the moon because it does not need cleaning yet or because

the moon does not want to deal with a bitch on her
period or because strawberry daiquiris are not served on the moon
or because the moon prefers a man’s firm handshake or maybe the moon

just doesn’t want to get married or because [women know nothing about]
sports and everyone knows the moon loves a good game of football. One small
step for earth, one giant leap for mankind. I       wonder what they found on that whaling

leap for I wouldn’t know I am still drowning in       the deep end of
the shallow puddle they jumped.        Scientists say more is known about the moon
than the deepest parts of ocean. I find this hard to believe. Us

women have been bustling across floors of unlit seabed for years bearing pressure
on chest until developing gills    to breathe and have found
something prolific in sinking over flight.