Day 22
Think About Later
It’s easy to sink to name-
calling, grab a flaw
of your beloved, famed
in daily life; cause a foofaraw
of epithets to fly the room
as you undo your bride or groom,
leave her or him quite undone
in the wake of your irksome
temperament.What might come to be
the atmosphere when late that night
you head off to bed? You may see
how ruinous this foolish fight
when you cross the pillow for a kiss,
are rebuffed of bedtime tenderness.
Day 23
Visiting Carnton Plantation*
In the shadow of the battlefield,
you cast your form long
on the grass below the monument
we both admire. Evening,
yet here we are, alone. Together
we might seem a pair in the place
where some grand battle
once was fought, where famous men
laid down their lives, left wives
and children for a cause. Have you left
someone behind as you stand in my sight
tonight, cause my heart to go faster
to its own demise? Lowered eyes
cannot but betray the shake
of my hand on the leaflet I hold
as I read the names of all those men
who came here on another night
to die. You turn your glance
away, and I die a little too, gather
up my sinking heart, carry it away.
*Carnton Plantation was the site of one of the few night battles of the Civil War
Day 24
At Midnight
Celebrate pale ash fluttering on the grate,
a flake that Coleridge saw
as nighttime friend as much as he saw
his son in cradle resting; calm and calmer
still his mind for poetry.
We who write the long cold dark of night
and have neither ash nor calm, wander
all alone in frosty words that swirl
both outside and in,
but will not come to flutter down.
Paper may burn for Coleridge,
but where for you is the match to strike,
the pictures to capture from the storm
that rages on outside? With a quiet page
on your lap like a blanket, just begin.
Day 25
She Said
It’s true, that the rumor
has gone viral
on the internet, that her name
is out there, ruined
by a boy who got no
when he insisted, when she
resisted his plan
to have his bawdy way
with her body. It’s true
that no one stopped him as she had
stopped him
behind the bleachers
after the big game, when
all of them drank
from the bottle someone brought
in a backpack. She’d agreed
to the kiss he planted, said so
with a kiss back, but pulled away
when he reached for more
under her skirt. She said no.
In less than an hour,
she was a whore on Facebook,
even though she’d said no.
Day 26
All of this
is true. Just ask the girl
left alone with her books, alone
under a tree avoiding play
with the neighborhood kids,
ask about when she escaped
into a world like Alice’s
where dreams talked
to her over tea and card games,
where cats’ grins shine, then disappear,
where riding hood is her sister
and she marries the wolf. True
is what she sees in the mirror, eats
a bite of tallness from the edge, drinks
from the bottle on the glass table
in the corner, fits through a keyhole.
Betrayal is not an apple, not one
poisoned by a witch or held out
by a serpent in a garden.
All of this and a prince who always finds
the right foot for the glass shoe,
and rides a white horse from his castle
just to kiss her on the lips. Nothing
of this is true, you say. The girl laughs,
turns the page, sipping from her golden goblet
as you slowly, bit by bit, disappear.
Day 27
Email
The habits of correspondence have been broken,
left in rusted mailboxes along rural lanes
to rot, to be eaten by weevils
or the occasional squirrel
using its domain for nesting.
There is nothing
for your heart there. Nothing
to carry to the house.
Nothing to send to the fire.
For God so loved his own voice
that he tied our tongues with twine
and sealed our letters with wax, leaving
only science, and that under suspicion.
How comes this letter now,
the one from the war, or the notice
from Defense telling
the bad news so unaffectionately?
Just yesterday, roses twined the post,
and now thistle warns
off the man on foot with his sack of woe.
The message comes in ether,
charging with protons, electrons,
a circling frenzy of dates
and time of death. These are the benefits
no one wanted, not even at this speed.
No ink to blur with tears, no sinking
to the knees distraught in front of the postman.
Only trembling fingers, on a keyboard
that gives back no touch,
its click impious, a wound that leaves
no mark, nothing to wipe away.
Day 28
Cough Syrup
Laced with drugs or plain
not kiddie pink or acid green
with a drink-cup-cap
my thoroughly modern syrup.
No more Mommy smile:
there there, swig it down now my dear
school day tomorrow!
Laced with drugs or plain, my syrup.
Easy open cap—
No worries about poison then
just germs to pass om
unless you stay in bed three days.
Call the doctor, call
and he’d come over to your house;
yes, make a house call
for a shot and some cough syrup.
Laced with drugs or plain
from the drink-cap-cup —
no doctor to make a house call
swig it down now, all the way down.
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