Matthew Lippman’s first book of poems, The New Year of Yellow, won the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize and is published by Sarabande Books. His second collection of poems came out in October of 2010, called Monkey Bars is published by Typecast Publishing. He teaches English Literature and Writing at Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Mass.
I am half naked in the kitchen trying to kiss my Ashkenazi ass. It’s an impossible task but I thought I’d have some fun so I prepare the pasta in balsamic with a splash of lime which is how I cooked the dish for my baby, al dente perfecto, as the blue listless sky danced […]
The madness of having children is that they don’t go away. I want them to—to the park for twelve years or to college when they are ten— even the ones who haven’t arrived. Don’t slide out just yet, give me six more days of silence to watch 24 episodes in one continuous loop so […]
Librarians freak the shit out of me. All of them wear glasses and even the pretty ones look tired. I scream, Stop being so tired. They sit in their librarian chairs for five hours and scan Tolstoy and Seuss. No one’s outside fixing phone wires in thirty degree wind. What’s the problem, people? Wake up. […]
So what if your kid has a case of the mongoloids, what do they say you can’t say these days, retards? So what if she comes out with five tongues and can’t shut up, can’t stop sucking on the teet, then the beef? We have these notions in our heads about what we can’t […]
Are you nuts? I can’t take care of anyone. Asking me to hold a baby is like jamming a stick of butter into a piano. I know that’s what everyone tried to teach me when I was a youngster in diapers— take care of your sister while we go to Venice for the weekend; water […]
There is a song in my head that goes la la la. When I sing it to my daughter, she sings la la la. In the middle of the produce aisle and in the middle of the world, she says shh daddy, stop singing. But there’s nothing coming out my mouth. Hush, I say, it’s […]