Sarah Barber

Meditation with a Bottle of Drano

First I must turn myself—
rubbered-palm pressed firm and flat
on the cap—against the clock.
How not to hurry the pouring
of what’s concentrated out.
How to wait considering, maybe,
what the clogged drain knows
of resurrection: each day
it chokes down its own drowning.
This water is nothing.
Here I seal, tightly, the cap.

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Originally from St. Louis, MO, Sarah Barber now lives in rural upstate New York. Barber holds an MFA from the University of Virginia and a PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Since 2010, she has taught at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY where she is Associate Professor of English. Her poems have appeared in journals such as New Ohio Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Crazyhorse, and Poetry. She is author of two collections: Country House, winner of the 2017 Pleiades Press Editors Prize for Poetry; and The Kissing Party, published in 2010 by the National Poetry Review Press.