Britt Kaufman 4 Poems
On Contemplating College before Preschool
I know you better than anyone
but that will change.
The farther you go,
the wider I must open
my arms to the world.
I am not losing you:
I will only lose you
if I fold my arms up
tight against my chest
to hold my aching heart.
What wonders will
I come to see and love?
Whose children will
I also call my own?
You will never stray
from my embrace
when I fling my arms out wide
and send you on your way.
an untitled haiku + senryu
mute down floats a trail
on the sky-shone lake, points to
hidden spring signets
invasive species,
largest of all the lake’s pests:
I’m the guilty one
Be
If we could just be—
content with what is already ours.
But we are human
of lust and blood:
driven by desire
for apples, for love,
for land, for brand name baubles.
We want—
feel the lack of a blanket around our shoulders,
beg our piece placed in the patchwork.
We are—
longing.
TSC Lullaby
Each night they weave
fluffy bodies into sleep,
worn from the work
of peeping, pecking, pooping
in the confines of a galvanized stock tank.
The warming light lulls them,
eyes close, legs give way,
disrupted—sudden flutter—by their collective
compulsion to be underneath—
until, at last, they rest their heads
over their sisters’ backs--
a blanket of chicks.
Illustrations by Adrianna Maxwell. See more of her art at facebook.com/Adriana.K.Maxwell
Britt has recently moved to Northern Indiana (where she grew up) after spending the last 22 years living the mountains of Western North Carolina. At various points in her life she has been a high school math tutor, a sub, a teaching artist, a stay-at-home mom, an English teacher, a volleyball coach, a graphic designer, a non-profit board member, and a taxi-driver between kids' sports practices. She enjoys working in her flower beds and reading. Unable to pick just a few hobbies, she also enjoys graphic design, photography, and quilting/sewing.
Her poetry and prose have appeared in various publications: Scientific American, J Journal: New Writing on Justice, Moss Puppy & Hyperbolic Review, Anabaptist World, Soft Star, Cosmic Daffodil, Kakalak Poetry Anthology (2007, 2008 & 2022), Main Street Rag, WNC Magazine, Now & Then, WNC Woman, The Mennonite and The Pedestal Magazine among others.
As founding planner, the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival will always be near and dear to her heart. She also hosted Eve's Night Out, a monthly open-mic poetry reading in Burnsville for ten years pre-pandemic.
Her first full-length play, An Uncivil Union: The Battle of Burnsville (a romantic comedy set in the middle of actual events that occurred in Burnsville during the Civil War) was produced as a part of the Parkway Playhouse's 2011 season. Her second play Between the Tackles, written with Stephanie Stark-Poling premiered in September of 2012 on the same stage. She was awarded a 2012 Regional Artist's Project Grant to aid the completion and production of this play. Her chapbook of poems Belonging was published by Finishing Line Press.
Midlife Calculus is her first full-length poetry collection (Press 53).
