MERNA DYER SKINNER
POET - PHOTOGRAPHER - CONSULTANT
POETRY: PRINT & ONLINE JOURNALS
BENDING TIME
I’ve outgrown the person I use to be,
clutched by pearls of propriety, society,
tucked into a pocket of politeness...
Woman, Spotted
After Veruska Vagen’s dot de verre mosaic
“The White Hat” (fused glass mosaic)
Beneath / your white hat
Taylor Swift / red lips / languid
Daisy Buchanan / eyes / blue / daring
me / Step closer / No / too close...
August 2025
May 2025
HOW TO CLEAN A FISH
Silently, we stood waiting our turn
behind a line of boisterous, back-slapping fishermen,
inching our way to the marina’s only cleaning table—
my mother grabbed the hose, sprayed away blood...
December 13, 2024
Fall 2024
Half-Moon Mantle – June 1994
From my aisle seat, I see him—The Mick—board
my flight from New York to Chicago. Shuffling his gait
and girth into my adjacent seat, he orders a whiskey, neat...
December 2024
WHEN WE WERE TOO YOUNG
To read the words on the box / of Blue Diamond
Matches / you were old enough / to strike
the stick tips / sending red / and yellow sparks
into the air /....
2024 CONTEST FINALIST
INSIDE RIZZOLI’S BOOKSTORE, WHEN IT WAS ONCE ON WEST 57th
My fingers trail across the cover of Mapplethorpe’s Pistils,
smooth and cool as the skin of your inner thighs...
INVINCIBLE, WE THOUGHT
It’s a wonder we weren’t snatched from the streets,
we two tween girls in summer halter tops...
Things You May Find Hidden in My Throat After Mosab Abu Toha
1.
A bud, tight pink, a cough caught
in the windpipe of my breath, until
I break into songs of the sixties: Monday
Monday, California Dreamin,’ (I Can’t Get
No) Satisfaction—lyrics, like scratch marks
on a 45, leap from my lungs—but deep
in the sea of me, cat calls from bag boys
delivering wild strawberries, corner boys whistling
crude invitations to open my bloom.
2.
A howl lurks there too, longing
to rip loose, to be seduced,
to vibrate postponed truths—fears
shelved, discounted, craving
a buyer, an open ear. Unnamable
sensations burn as traveling fever dreams
banging the back of my larynx,
seeking an exit sign that isn’t there.
3.
Dissect my trachea, and you’ll find spiraling
traces of 8th-great-grandmother’s DNA, her voice
strangled in the loop of a rope, strung
high on Boston Common, 1660.
Three hundred years later, illnesses begin,
always in my throat—my sinew remembering
the force she felt when the boards dropped
away—voice box crushed, tongue hushed.
January 2024
Chiron Review #134: Fall 2024
Aboard the Sea Gal...pg 78
Aboard the Sea Gal, Sea Legs Wide
She steadies her galley stance, rolls egg noodle dough—
her hip-sway syncs with surf’s rising tide.
Spring lines, tied dockside from bow to bracket,
creak and groan....
Dear Virgin of Remedies
After Remedios Varo’s painting “Rupture”
Uncloak your lamentations / let fly your defiance
of dictators / shred their orders to annihilate
art / fling them to the winds /....
SEMI-FINALIST - BLUE 29
WINTER / SPRING 2024 CONTEST
Blue 29
In Memphis, she drank whiskey
till dawn at the Blue Moon Saloon.
Danced with an indigo-blue man,
her breath bitter as bleu cheese,
her cheek’s faded bruises, faint
robin’s egg blue. When she blew
out her candles, the light in her
lapis eyes wicked away,
disappeared into the navy-blue night,
invisible as Blu-ray waves. Chilled
wind rattled an azure-stained shutter,
made her shiver, made her blue,
made her drop the needle
on Miles’ disc Kind of Blue.
She’d forgotten to make a wish.
Too late? She grabbed a box of Blue
Diamond matches, snatched a
thin sliver of hope, struck its tip,
held the shimmering blue-red flame
atop each of the twenty-nine
blackened-blue wicks, wishing,
as she often did, for a brand new
sapphire-blue, do-over life.
The Danger in Meeting Your Lover for Lunch
You’ll consent to alcohol when he orders
Ouzo—even though you’re to meet new clients
at 2. You’ll repeatedly glance from him
to the door with the rhythm of a minute-hand
ticking off time, worried someone you know
will see him holding your hand, massaging
your fingers, signaling his desire to skip
dessert. Distracted, you’ll miss him ordering
for you—a Greek salad—once again,
you’ll realize he’s forgotten how you abhor
olives—how he says nothing when you flick
them aside—how you plan to end this meal
with a whisper to his ear, Mon amor, Plus jamais,
yet knowing, he will silence your lips with his—again.
January 2024 Issue
Dancing for the Dead
forgotten are the living who disappear
into skyscraper sugar clouds eyes perched
above check bones necks searching for the Sun
inside lightening autumn’s iron spoons
dance shuck and shuffle the Clapper Fandango
stirring desert silences into applause
from afterlife performers praise-sounds
echo from tongues clattering inside skulls and teeth chattering as lipless jaws shout bravo brava
September 2023
Cooling Off
Inside the walk-in cooler of my father’s
bodega, I take refuge from summer’s heat...
Baby's Breath
Spilling along my garden path—
their panicles
heavy with airy white flowers
a sway in the summer breeze:...
Sharing A Tasting Menu
It’s my fault, really, how fine dining
feels like a necessity, not a splurge.
It began, I think, with your 10th birthday—
September 27, 2023 Issue
Daredevils
We once held beads of mercury in our palms,
rolled them around our bowls of skin and bone,
ignorant of the poison at hand....
While Viewing the Black Marble Clock
It’s not how Cézanne’s bright white linen upstages
the ebony clock without hands,
nor how the porcelain saucer and cup teeter...
Self-Portrait as Mailbox
Fickle as a witness / in a court case of knives
and bespectacled assassins / my nearby compatriot
groans / overstuffed with envelopes / from lopsided
mythological lands...
Issue 24, Spring '23
Summer Issue 2022
Theme - Blood
Summer Camp
the axe
the tree
the branch
across
her bow
her blood
flowing
like the
rushing
Snake River—
the girl
caught
in the
canoe—
cuts her-
self free—
one day
her blood
will flow
again when
hormones
call her name
when lanky
boys long
to touch
her leg
finger
her scar
asking
if she
will bleed
for them
Featured in Issue 28 - Summer / Fall 2022
her below-the-knee skirt to mid-thigh height
as she walks to middle school one morning?
Is her mother the first in a long queue
of adults who school her on the rules
and restrictions of good-girl dictums?
After braces and finishing school,
she walks in teen fashion shows,
learns to turn her head just so—beguilingly
tossing her hair, smiling on cue
for the photographer. To relax her
clenched fingers, he teaches her to shake
her wrists as if air-drying wet hands.
His trick works long enough for the shot.
As she walks off set, she sucks in her cheeks,
curls her tongue, tight inside her mouth—
strides like a model girl, fists swinging.
Someday I Will Love Merna Louise After Susan Rich, Ocean Vuong, & Frank O'Hara
When nearsighted eyes fool her
footsteps—and tumbles turn her
early childhood days into skinned
knees and face-first falls onto sidewalks
chalked with hopscotch forms, and
scattered stones—this gangly girl,
captured for a moment, stands
beside the blue family Buick, posing
defiantly—fists on hips, ragtag dress
hitched up—curled tongue sticking out
from her frowning lips—her response
to her photographer father, whenever
he orders her to smile.
So, when does she begin to bite her tongue,
bury it deep in the well of her mouth?
Is it when she’s caught rolling up
Breakfast With My Father
I was standing on a cliff above a roiling sea—
my father, from behind the morning paper,
relayed his distressing dream...
Featured in Spring 2022 online& print edition
Featured in Fall Issue, 2021 & 2022 Print Edition
Featured in Vol 6, Issue 2, Fall 2021
I Pretend I'm a Long-Distance Jumper
Visiting child of the other woman / barefoot / I bound
through the four-room house / of my father’s first wife—
Featured in:
Lily Poetry Review, Print Issue 7 Winter 2022 and Quartet Fall Issue, 2021
Summer 2024 "All About My Mother" Poetry Series
She Could Have Lost A Hand
Sea-legs wide, on the aft deck, my mother readies her lure—
threads fishing line though eyelets, loops filament
into one tidy knot, pulled tight with her right index finger,
its tip cut deep, scarred, decades ago, into an upturned smile...
Secret-Keepers of Eastern Island
I must tell you of the wild horses of Rapa Nui—
thousands of feral creatures, who, in daylight,
meander coastal ridges of volcanic rock—
indifferent to drop-offs, to surging seas below...
The Bullet Guys and Me
I once showed oilmen how to brighten their sheen—
taught nicotine pushers
tricks to blow smoke.
Prelude
Issue 4 2022
The Ekphrastic Review,
August 15, 2021
My Paris Birthday
In the early morning, mother and I stroll the Catacombs.
Empty skulls stacked fifty deep...
Clocking Time
O, to climb inside a clock!
To slip between the gears—
The Impermanence of Sandcastles
Perhaps a glint of sun blinds you,
Or we are laughing too hard
To notice....
The Haunting of Room 125 at The Campus Inn
I’ll climb out of the room when you stop obsessing over words—
your clattering keys disturbing my thoughts...
FEATURED WRITER FEB 27, 2021
Volume 13 - 2021
ROCKING CHAIR
Ever so slightly, I press one foot upon the floor
setting my rocker in motion
back and forth
forward and back.
Hardwood floorboards creak their greeting.
Shaped like a human body at rest,
the rocking chair shores up arms, supports legs,
cradles my spine—
only my neck and head bend and release
imperceptibly to the rhythm.
My gaze unfocused, breath slow and subtle
as if the chair breathes for me.
My mind, like a fishing line,
casts forward, seeking what?
Inspiration? Reprieve?
How clever of Thonet to reject wood’s rigidity,
unravel a way to bend beech—to mimic
a body’s curvature.
Water, heat, force,
time—the furniture maker’s agents
of transformation.
Renoir, with charcoal-stained fingers, sketches such a chair
—curlicues swirling beneath a reclining woman,
fully clothed, corset-tight.
Surely she needs the chair
to help her breathe. In repose, her eyes, like mine,
dreamy, quiet.
Science tells us motion is therapy—
how many psychologists have replaced their couches
with rocking chairs? Recalcitrant patients tip themselves
forward and back
back and forth—
feel no judgment
in arms’ smooth curves, find strength
in stretchers beneath their buttocks,
behind their backs, untangle
long-held secrets of shame
or, simply let their gaze ease—
blur surrounding walls, windows—
breathe in and out—
and in their rocking, create
a gentle stir of air—awaken
their subconscious to words
waiting.
So, let us thank the timber, sawed and sanded
into spindles and splats, rockers and rails—
let us praise cherry and birch, steamed and bent—
applaud the stacks of cane, soaked and stripped,
woven thick into seats of thatch—
the rocking chair will bear any weight we bring.
Walking My Golden on a Rainy Day
I squint to see picked-over whalebones
along the inlet path...
Catch and Release
Father’s thick fingers bait our hooks and cast our lines,
sending shimmying circles across the lake...
A Private Revelle
The cook slips from the kitchen
in the pre-dawn gray...
BEFORE GRAVITY
Remember when we skipped everywhere?
Arms moving like counterpoint melodies,
knees rising, pedaling air,
ponytails swinging....
SUBJECTIV JOURNAL
SPRING 2021 - Free Download
STAR 82 REVIEW
Issue 2.2 2014
MiPOesias
June 2014
MOJAVE RIVER REVIEW
HOW TO TALK YOUR WAY OUT OF A TRAFFIC TICKET IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY
And Officer, it was as if the tree reached out from the woods,
just there — do you see the slick of leaves and snapped branches?
And the rain beat down so hard the wipers wept
and my eyes stung with smoky mascara. Sir,
the mascara — it’s not supposed to run. Why does everything run?
And that pine fence blew loose, blocking my path.
And the funeral, it’s started by now, and I’m not there, sir.
Lo siento, sir. It’s getting cold. You have snow on your mustache,
sir. Yes, so easy to brush away — still, snow can smother a boy.
Lo siento, sir. My papers must be here, buried in my bag.
Do you have children, sir? Niños? You’re lucky. Perhaps
it was the mailbox I passed — with its latch undone. And I was wondering,
will the casket be open? Do they do that here? I was wondering,
will my son’s blue eyes still shimmer beneath his brittle lids?
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TWO APRONS
She hangs the gingham apron loose around her neck. Frayed grosgrain ribbons edge three pockets. Sewn in her youth and stored in her hope chest, the apron hangs low over breasts heavy as breadfruit. She pulls wooden clothespins from a pocket. Bites them between her teeth. It is laundry day on the prairie. She hangs her man’s clothes — lets them stiffen on the line. An errant rooster feather clings to his shirt snapping in the wind. She plucks it off and tucks the bit of red in her pocket. She will tickle him with it later.
She pulls the butcher’s apron over her head. Wraps the ties twice around her waist. Her white sheath catches drips of red as she lifts a tray of beef scraps. It is hamburger-grinding day. She pushes twenty pounds of cow through churning metal teeth, blends it into strings of red meat. Smeared with blood by the end of her shift, she flicks errant bits of gristle from her chest, wipes the knives clean against her white thighs. She will cash her check at the corner bar — lick white foam from atop a stream of beers and kiss any man with clean nails.
CATCH AND RELEASE
Father’s thick fingers bait our hooks and cast our lines,
sending shimmying circles across the lake. When
the ripples smooth to nothing, I sigh, as if with them. I am five.
Dragonflies helicopter overhead. My line jerks with my first fish —
too small to keep. Father releases it — it’s mother-of-pearl scales
glimmering in the morning light, cold body undulating deeper until it disappears.
Shrimp carapace scattered on a white plate. I am twenty-five.
The difference between the wind in my hair and the wind on the waves —
nothing more than quarks in motion here or there.
Buttery fingers wiped on white linen leave the DNA
of ancient crustaceans. On the table, a splayed lobster tail,
crab shells sucked dry and the diamond ring I’ve cast aside.
I slip from the room while this man who once seemed so alluring
takes a call. Survival is a question of instinct, moving this way
rather than that. Seeing the bait bag for what it is — a test.
Summer 2014 - vol 1 no 2
THE SQUAW VALLEY REVIEW
ISBN 9780988895331
NAMING AN HEIR, A PARENT
SILVER BIRCH PRESS
"ALL ABOUT MY NAME" POETRY SERIES
SOUTHERN BOUND WHITE GIRL
Traveling slow as heat along the Dixie Highway
we pass bare bottom brown boys digging in dirt.
An old woman sits outside her one-room shack
fanning her skin, creased as dried mud.
Further on, a khaki-covered white man
sits atop a horse — rifle in hand.
Bound ankles shuffle, chains clink a dusty song
and twenty sweat-soaked black backs
bend, digging a ditch already dug. Across the field
a bright Georgia road sign promises
Peaches Grits Biscuits Just Ahead
____________
White Only Colored
I am six — sunburned pink
I follow the arrow for Colored
SILVER BIRCH PRESS "ME AS A CHILD" POETRY SERIES
