“Black is such a happy color, darling.” —Carolyn Jones, playing Morticia Addams

Karen Rigby is the author of the poetry books Chinoiserie (Ahsahta Press, 2012) and Fabulosa (JackLeg Press, 2024). A National Endowment for the Arts literature fellow, her poems are published in journals such as Poetry Northwest, Bennington Review, and The London Magazine. She is a freelance book reviewer in Arizona.

Welcome to the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Karen, what poems have you brought for us today?

Why My Poems Arrive Wearing Black Gloves

like twin gauntlets set on the margin: enter the female
assassin. The screwball debutante. Noir & glitz
mixed in one bad throwback to an age when dahlias
bowled anyone who breathed them. My poems arrive
wearing satin or suede to haunt you when they leave
no trace. I’ve watched a man pull off his gloves
with his teeth. The trick to undoing the wolf
behind the saint is to make a slo-mo invitation
of it. Because there’s never a plot unless one of us
goes missing, that’s me at the aerodrome
& you boarding a custard plane. Now fly
a desultory wind before you vanish. That’s
the tension we need. I love an overblown image:
a drawer full of hands wave in a solemn motorcade.
My gloves pantomime moods so thick
you could ladle gravy. About my first book
a critic wrote I’m a little bored with the aesthetic.
If that isn’t damning, what is? My poems wear black
to turn the dials & bag the ice. In the director’s cut
I’m driving the hairpin curve when the camera
rolls back to show you, looking louche, but alive.
You were always in on it. A poem is a diamond heist.
Tell the critic no one watches a woman enter a room
to look at her hands just like no one’s reading
this poem to picture my life. But a black glove.
Peeled down the avenue of my arm, what wouldn’t you do?

Black Roses

None. Only burgundy or violet,
scene you never imagine,
fields burning with larvicide.
Black Magic, Lavaglut,
Ruby Celebration, holy grail
of botany furled like ironwork.
Not even carnations
split along their stems
to drink the florist’s dye
approach the order of the rose.
Some say petals scorch
easily, the symbol turned
Vampiric: floribundas
staked from Syria to parlors
of the Art Nouveau.
Always a rose entwined
with rose, given in ardor
or vengeance. Kiss-of-death.
Blood-of-martyrs. Novel.
Noir. Baccara, Barkarole.
Black rose dried in vellum,
black rose frosted in nitrogen,
black rose tattooed, genus
prized for being almost true.
Essence of dream. Apothecary.
How I loved you, whittling
thorns, loved you not.

You're listening to the poems of Karen Rigby on the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.