Three Poems
by Claudia Gary

Understudy

If that were you, they’d shout, “Yes! Sing it for us!”

Out in the spotlight—that’s where you belong,

not here, buried alive within the chorus,

waiting and hoping something will go wrong.

She is so bright, the star you study under

obliterates your sky. You mustn’t show it.

Just sweetly sing while dreaming of your plunder,

and blithely smile in hopes that she won’t know it.

Of course she knows; your smile’s as fake as hers.

In Trial By Jury, she’s the jilted bride

and you’re a bridesmaid. No pretense endures

Gilbert and Sullivan’s rollicking ride.

But since you’ve not yet learned satiric mettle,

your stomach sours, turns, and cannot settle.

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First published in Mezzo Cammin

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Portrait at Dusk

This is the “after” picture you see now—

after a clutch of losses, false beginnings,

unruly endings. Those cling to her brow

and to each set of corners, while the winnings

swim in her eyes and balance on her lips

to tilt and roll according to each morning’s

peculiar cast of light, solar eclipse,

sweet-sour recollections, bitter warnings.

And what was here before? Unfounded hope,

parental expectations and her own:

expecting glibly to be loved, to cope

with everything and never be alone.

The sun’s embers, the evening’s giddy breeze—

they’ve startled her. Another moment, please.

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First published in American Arts Quarterly

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In the Cellar

Some stories are not told

but stored in airtight vessels

with time and other solvents.

On odd days I descend,

adjust the failing lamp,

and agitate the specimens.

Each sealed in a dim pool,

they swirl on dusky currents,

feed on the dark, and ripen.

One day they appear translucent.

How quickly I’ve outlived them!

Will I someday grow old

enough to speak of them?

Meanwhile I dust the glass

and again revise the labels.

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First published in Shit Creek Review

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Claudia’s notes: “These poems are from my new book Time and Other Solvents—a memoir of healing, told in poems. It tells two interlocking stories: on the one hand, acquiring and overcoming an eating disorder; and on the other hand, learning to master various art forms, which I believe played an essential role in healing for me and many others.”

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Claudia Gary teaches workshops on Sonnets, Villanelles, Natural Meter, Persona Poems, Poetry vs. Trauma, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org) and privately, currently via Zoom. The author of Time and Other Solvents (Sligo Creek Publishing, 2026), Humor Me (2006), and several chapbooks, most recently Genetic Revisionism, she is an advisory editor for New Verse Review, as well as a health and science writer, visual artist, and composer of tonal art songs and chamber music. A semifinalist for the Anthony Hecht Prize (Waywiser), Pushcart Prize nominee, Honorable Mentionee in the Able Muse book contest, and three-time finalist in the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Contest, Claudia has chaired panels on Poetry and Music, Poetry and Science, and The Sonnet in 2016, at the West Chester University (Pa.) poetry conference; and on Poetry and Music at the Frost Farm poetry conference. Her 2022 article on setting poems to music is online at https://straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html. See pw.org/content/claudia_gary.

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Three Poems by Claudia Gary

Three Poems
by Claudia Gary