When We Still
once
upon a time, when we still
believed
in happy endings, the ice
cracked
beneath our boots in the
parking
lot, spring still to come, those
flowers
garlanded through your hair
and
your voice so far, so far away
and
fading away as if caught and
carried
by the wind, scrambling your
syllables
as the tines of the fork thrust
through
the stew, vegetable matter chopped
none
too fine, yet we shall not
choke,
I think
the
three wishes given and gone, the
finger
pricked, used to pen some
scarlet
script, a crimsoned syllabus
brightening
her eyes, cheeks rosered
lilywhite
by turns
Alpha and Omega
In
the beginning, when all was new,
and
you and I and the green shoots
looked
up at the sun, there
was
no need to jockey for position,
snarling
at this one, spitting at the
other,
smearing and slandering all
the
day long, the hecklers from
the
penny-seats, delighting in the
murky
depths they could sink to, as
if
a moray eel with razor-teeth, lurking
in
the brackish waters, brother to that one
beneath
the feet of a woman, crawling forever
upon
his belly, lowest of the low, while
bully-boys
clear the room with a cane,
rigging
outcomes with a heavy hand,
laying
the lies on, thick as buttercream
on
teacakes studded with pretty pills.
still,
my alpha and omega, as
the
green leaves have changed to
scarlet-gold,
crimsontipped, blood-orange, burning
up
into the blueskies, flametrees flagrant, the
truth
of the season shifting. The sky is
not
black because someone says
it
is so. I will believe
the
evidence of
my
eyes.
Triune Themed
morning,
noon, and night these
three
muses (Calliope, Erato, and
Thalia)
inspire
new ways to utter those
three
little words we let slip
after
a late dinner and
too
much wine, inspiring tercets in
triplicate,
the three sandwiched sheets
of
paper, carbon, and paper again
dusting
fingers with soot, dust you are and
dust
you will return to, so says Father,
Son,
and Holy Ghost, the triune
God
blessed when the trifecta lines
your
pockets with green, triple digits this
time
and you bless the gods and
the
muses three, informing your words, the
beginning,
middle, and end of all our histories,
the
love, loyalty, and friendship gold-emblazoned
upon
your hand and heart
Night Missive
written
to memory, in the dark, one letter at
a
time, then separating phrases like
sheep
from goats, wheat from chaff,
engaging
in verbal
gymnastics,
the turn of phrase to turn
the
eye to the next page, and the next. Is
this
chatter made up of the sparks from
stars? More likely from the thin strip of
gold
where the door (nearly)
closes,
a glimmer of brilliance, words, like pearls,
strung,
one after another, amidst the
slumping
shadows of upholstery, curtains,
clothing,
the
clobber
of an acquisitive nature.
tomorrow:
to seek out the blue box
mushroomed
at a corner, or mid-block,
brighter
than their green, stolid cousins,
squat
above a slab of concrete.
see
here: the rain, puddled, magnifies the
words,
those restrictions on weighty
prattle,
tied in brown paper and twine,
destined
for pawing by a thick-fingered
clerk
in baby blue, hazardous words indeed
At Sixes and
Sevens
ah,
the rivulets of tea streaming from
upended
crockery, the jam
smeared,
half upon the toast
and
half upon the cloth, the boiled
eggs
ill-timed and runny,
all
at sixes and sevens, both as
cross
as two sticks, so she says
let’s
close our eyes, dear,
and
start again, afresh,
before
we espy the
sun
peering through those
bare
branches, spindly and austere
in
silent disapproval
The Orchestra
Tunes Up
discordant
tones merge into
one
seamless melody, the
pitching
strains
woven
together tightly, stitches
in
a jumper, head pushed through
the
neckhole as if being
born
again, hair askew, tempest
tossed
as if blown by sea
winds,
the melodies borne
along
by night air, buffeted
and
shaped by darkening clouds,
rough
to make smooth
Herringbone Dyed
and Spun
flecked
with the colors of seafoam and
darkening
skies, herringbone dyed and spun,
capacious
pockets that held
sweets,
before they were scattered, like
rain,
for grandchildren to find (what wonders that
coat
held) redolent of pipe smoke twisting
up
on chill afternoons, fragrant-sweet,
blue
furled up to cloud-thick skies.
buttons,
like eyes, glint, a
winking
as he walked the miles to town, hard
to
keep up with his long stride, though
they
did their best,
fabric
tightly woven, stamped with orb
and
cross, edges bound fast,
shield
against cold and damp,
surely
magical, even in frightening the
scavengers
of the field, this
scarecrow
in his Sunday best
Mirrored
perched
on an indigo banquette in a
mirrored
corner, a neat figure
is
reflected multiply as
she
peers into the oval
of
a smoothgold compact, sees the
strangeness,
the sleek whorls of
a
new coiffure, medusa-like, heavily
lacquered,
and jewellery
jangles
as she paws through
her
handbag for match and
cigarette,
inhales, exhales,
looks
through the looking-glass
into
worlds ever receding away,
distant
reflections, so many of
her,
so many it tires her,
it
tires her,
the
same face, the self-same words,
over
over
over
may
I take your order?
Heel of the Loaf
smeared
with clots of
blackcurrant,
riven by
silvered
flash of butter
knife
dragged across
this
odd endment, the
heel
of the loaf, least
preferred
of all, square
of
sustenance, staff of
life,
give to us our
daily
bread,
not the stones
we
choke on, or those
beneath
thin-soled shoes,
navigating
the gravel of a
driveway
as the music
dies
down, picking steps
carefully
in moonlight, belle
of
the ball no longer, the
clock
gone twelve and
that
ancient moon looming down
Billet-doux
bundled
into a packet,
ribbon-tied,
my worn edges
bump
up against some neatly folded
patterned
squares of silk
I
imagine unfurled,
knotted
round her neck,
a
thin (but surprisingly warm),
barrier
against the cold.
I
warmed her, once, on the
coldest
days she endured, her
eyes
alight as they traced
each
word, whispering them
aloud
so that I, too, could
hear
them, the sloping scripts,
the
twists and curlicues in
black
on white as ink
on
snow and my words wait,
for
her,
forever
Golden Apples
three
golden apples gleaming
on
their silver bough
weigh
him down, lighter, still,
than
his usual, worldly burden
gods
or men, the
tasks
set to us are
to
be completed, even
as
we fly straight for the sun,
slaughter
some beast, or
navigate
some pitching sea, you—
tossed,
a cork upon
waters
thick with trouble—what
can
we do, sometimes, except make
burnt
offerings of the dinner and
light
candles the next day?
Free As A
bird
on a wire
chirping
cheerily, oh
so
cheerily through
the
morning routines
espied
through her
beadlike
eyes glittering
over
the yellow ribs
of
the bus-tops gliding past
broken
branches, the
sedans
streaking past the
STOP
signs, grinding against
the
first frost—
with
a free leg and a
fine
day
shanks
mare into town
Green, In Spite Of
at
the edge of the
boneyard
green
grows up,
unimpeded
unencouraged
except
by
occasional rains,
dew
damping down those
stringy
roots, the
shoots
reflecting back
dullness
of oxidation, redbrown
as
bloodstains
vigorous,
thickening, seeking
out
the rays of the
sun,
spreading out in
rude
health, thriving amidst
a
steady decrepitude,
breaking
down, dying
all
around, signage worn
away
to a tracing, sun-
bleached
Turn the Page
turn
the page and there
he
is, eternal wunderkind,
all
mouth and no trousers, in
a
four-color spread tipped into
the
Sunday magazine,
declaiming
over his collection
of
antique silver salad forks, Adonis,
he
of the chiseled brow and
blue
eyes, head yet unbowed
turn.the.page
here
she’s been since
six,
juggling those golden apples
in
some sort of circus act
approximating
life—shot through,
like
a Swiss cheese, Peckinpah-
style. she uses the streams to
write
everything down, an
undercurrent
of voice below the
others,
narrator
keeping
everything aloft in spite of
(because
of?) her increasing
invisibility
(her next power) as
she
sees all
she
hears all
and
writes
it all down
Light on Bloodorange
light
strains through
a
pane onto the
bloodorange,
smoothed
wheat
colors, sleek grains, sun
magnifying
head through
transparency,
and we
ants
under the curving glass,
enlarged,
our mandibles
grasping
and reflexing over
crumbs,
watching the play of
shadows
(while
one
wrenches one of their six legs off and
uses
it to beat another,
all
the while howling “I
am
the most virtuous ant
of
all!) grimacing at the
most
recent stain upon the
sidewalk,
hoisting glasses to
our
lips, brushing a spray
of
sandy sweet grains from
wood
bleached pale
and
he calls her by the name of another
and
she starts and says—yes,
love
comforteth like sunshine
after
rain and light
streams
in
silent confirmation
Plain Oatmeal
Porridge
(Not Oatmeal
Deluxe)
half-cup
measure old-fashioned
cut
oats, one tablespoon of
fine
white sugar into the steaming
copper-bottomed
pot (one cup water)
splash
of milk
stir-STIR-stir,
brisk
tines beating through
the
thickness of it,
crown
with brown
sugar
to melt into
puddles
of sweet
one
once penned
an
oatmeal poem—
creating
a woman of
the
stuff—I have not
his
mystical
magic,
alas and alack,
with
cereal grains
but
mine will yet
warm
the core, to
be
sure a
coarser
trick
Mudlarks at Midday
incidental
music of cutlery
upon
china, we trawl through
our
meal, speaking of the
history
buried in riverbeds,
thick
sediments unearthed by
mudlarks,
the particular resonance of
some
items, some
words,
reverberating
within the
hush
of just-afternoon,
white-aproned
waiters preparing
for
the caterwauling evening
to
come, everlastingly arranging glassware
(chink,
clink, chink)
each
memory an artifact
safely
stowed away, a
polished
stone, the green jagged
glass,
the dagger obscured
by
rust, the curved tab from a
fizzy
drink, fit to slice a finger
gleam
of silverware against
hemstitched
squares in the half-light,
condensation
beading upon the glass, the
insistent
writing upon the world, I,
once
was here
A Withering
too
soon, too soon, the bloom shrivels
on
the bough,
icy
breath of winter
sending
a chill down
the
spine, longing for
the
warming green of
long
May days entwined, sinuous,
heat
of June wreathing
round,
the conflagrations
of
July compete with
fireflies
darting
through
the sweet fug of
honeysuckle
thick along
the
road, fragrance, in memory,
forever,
though
the
flower withers
What Words, These
what
words, these, emblazoned
upon
cardstock or upon
muslin,
framed and hung
what
happy we, what
thankful
we, holding
hands
beneath garlanded
tables,
unseen, surprised
by
joy, shocked at that
this
world may yet reveal
In Every End
in
every end some
beginning,
the boots forced
across
the threshold,
hayfoot,
strawfoot, all
the
way into town, the
trees
receding behind
one
until, in caverns
of
brick and cement
an
end plonked on
a
chair, better to
survey
the scene while
coffee-drinking,
words
thrust through the
air
as arrows, some
missing
their target
entirely. No matter.
in
the end what will
remain
of us except the
rapid-fire
of synapses, one
after
the other, an endless
looping
of recollection
