Day 8
In the Box
I keep a box under my head,
invisible box of petals,
photographs, and lockets.
In ancient cultures, heads
went down at night, boxes
for pillows anyway.
I am not those women.
I am a woman who sleeps
with her head in the east
to see day coming, to avoid
seeing it go at the end.
I keep a box behind my left ear,
the ear that hasn’t heard anything
but love forever. Drums and clocks
clamor for attention in that silent ear
and I give of myself to their begging.
I am a woman who gives herself to love,
not to picking flowers that die by even.
In the box beneath my feet a memory
to walk over and over in the rain.
Day 9
Dorothea
child of Oz since birth, books it
west to San Diego, passes
through Kansas on her green bicycle,
wheels clipped with playing cards.
The phyt phyt phyt of the Queen of Hearts
[from another Tough Girl Tale]
keeps a rhythm in her ears as she pedals
Toto along for the adventure.
A push and a pull of his handles, the Wiz works
his balloon over the travelers, puffs his
caterpillar pipe, rings of smoke like clouds
circle the pair as they ride toward the Pacific
where there hasn’t been peace since Elpheba
was born. Dorothea fingers the little bottle
of fairy liquor in her pinafore pocket, the foil-
wrapped cookie. Eat me. Drink me. Key’s
on the bench next to the carrousel. Oil can’s
in the waste bin by the bike rack
right by the lion cages. Go west, girl, go
where the streets are gold as sunshine
that never seems to end. Go west
where the WW no longer resides, go west.
Toto, green bow around his neck,
hates the idea, recalls another basket,
some witching weather. Afraid of storms,
eyes on the horizon, he thinks of Lassie
who wasn’t afraid of anything. Pretty
Toto, clever as a cheshire, waits
and watches. He spies scarecrows,
straw hands waving a warning
over poppy fields as they wheel
into fools’ territory just shy of Barstow.
Singing her high-pitched songs,
Dorothea doesn’t notice the sky,
can’t smell the ozone
where witchy-twitchy houses
are on the move overhead.
Day 10
Sin
Shunned by yet another beau,
she gardens with a frenzy,
hands plunging in and out
of the flowerbeds, hands red
from watering and weeding, scratched
by rose-y thorns, her sensibilities torn
the day he left saying she could never
be his forever, his other half. Fancy
flowers are not what comforts her today.
She prefers weeds who seem to be her sisters,
cast out and burned like she whose only sin
is her virginity. She will not offer it
to any Harry Tom or Dick, become
the rose they pin on their lapels.
Day 11
Birds Wouldn’t
When women were birds
they’d never have driven a ramp
to the ferry with foot to the floorboards
taking out the souvenirs and bottled water
in the shop on the wharf to the ferry.
They’d never have plowed
down cars of vacationers waiting
to get to the island. When women
were birds, they’d have flown
above the family with red backpacks
of bathing suits, goggles, books
of sudoku and crosswords. No bird
would take off flying down the ramp
at such speed, taking the 9 year old child,
forever wrecking the family
that only wanted one last getaway
the week before school starts.
Day 12
Castings
As if the forest were alive,
as if it could stop breathing
and still live. On the floor debris
from what we do, castings
from worms we’ve become.
Day 13
Her
The famous poet dedicates his new work
to his wife, a woman who called
his mistress whore. She made the call,
the accusation like a gong
going off in a Chinese temple, a throb
of words echoing into the night or day
or beyond time left on earth. He writes
of a buried heart, clear presence of fiber
that once connected him where he is not
connected now. Smarting from the last time,
he writes of memorizing her and the sea,
her and museums, her and her hair (such a nest!)
where he lived for so long. He writes of her
on every page dedicated to his wife.
In another place, his mistress writes too.
Her heart has grown scales
like a prehistoric fish which shed them,
took on legs, walked on land
searching for lovers breaking up on trains
or in taxicabs, or in the beds that will not lose
the scent of them. Her heart, smarting
from the last time he rolled her over, took
his time with her, then left, is a buried heart too.
She is whore and angel; he is lost like she knew
(really always knew) he would be lost.
No one hears the slapping
of the sea against the cheek like she does.
She writes of him bitterly as a whore must.
Day 14
Seducted Poem
Fear anything but love, allow
it inside where the blood
divides you from angels.
Feed your heart a cherry
give it rest from nothing
make it work for its nights
and its lovers. Seduce it
into a fearless journey for love.
Put your heart (blood pumping)
on a train, not just any train,
but the one where you last let her
lay across you in possession.
Pay off the photographers
and reporters who are traveling
in the next car, writing
about you and her, laying bare
the blood you have mixed
with her. Listen to the wheels
run time out. Give your blood away
one last time before the train stops.
No comments:
Post a Comment