Tuscaloosa Bypass, A New Chapbook by Poet Cecele Kraus

Tuscaloosa Bypass, A New Chapbook by Poet Cecele Kraus 

 

Tuscaloosa Bypass, a new chapbook by poet Cecele Kraus, will be published by 

Finishing Line Press in February, 2012. 

To pre-order your copy, please e-mail us at Tuscaloosa@PassifloraHome.com 

or call Passiflora at (518)325-6559 

You can also order directly from Finishing Line Press.

This amazing collection of poems would make a wonderful holiday gift!!

By Cecele Kraus

"Sewing Ties"

Attic fans pull Alabama air from shadowed rooms.

Rosa, the Smith’s black maid, makes soup

and sings, There is power, power,

wonder working power

in the precious blood of the lamb.

We’re guests while my father preaches a revival,

but the Smiths are busy. Bud hunts pheasants.

His sister, Sue, is packing for college.

I wander the rooms looking for something to do.

In a sparse bedroom I find a treadle machine,

spools of thread, small scissors, a bag of old ties,

and lay them out on the bed—bold roosters,

jeweled peacocks, regimental stripes.

I gather them onto a waistband,

and as my father calls all to come to Jesus,

I give myself to the five-eighths inch seams,

the machine’s whir.

After thirty years in private practice as a psychoanalyst, Cecele Kraus found herself writing poetry. Writing provided perspective and poetry became a way of life. Her work has appeared in Windfall, Naugatuck River Review, Passager, Backstreet, Chronogram, MyStoryLives, and two chapbook anthologies--Java Wednesdays and Zephyrs 2. Peace Corps experiences were the inspiration for a chapbook entitled Dreaming Barranquilla. In 2009, her poem, “Love Blooms,” won first place in the Hudson Valley Writers Guild poetry contest. She lives in Copake, New York. This poem appeared first in the Fall, 2009 issue of "Java Wednesdays, as “Longest Day of the Year."