Tag Archives: poetry

To be Possessed by You

To be sorted, set among your souvenirs,
your stock photographs, your classics.
To be licked clean like a cat. To be laid out
some nights on your fire escape, bleached
by the moon to match your sheets. To be safe
in the style of rolled coins, safe like heirloom
pearls under glass, safe like sleep. To be announced,
to be spoken like a dead language, named like
a painting, arranged the way music is arranged.
To be reminded of the passing of hours. To be
reminded of promises. To be held together
like a broken figurine while the glue dries
on my wings. Some nights, to fall asleep under
your breath and dream my skin freckled with
mercury. Some nights, to fall asleep under
your hand and dream my body a nested doll,
only cages and cages, even into the heart.

Published in Gigantic Sequins 2010.

Pet Project

I built the bear from what I knew of horses. I didn’t know running except towards joy so I molded his legs as sinewed spindles. When he was done, his mouth seemed too long, the slope of his spine distinctly equine but when I called him Bear he answered. I fed him warm milk in the morning and biscuits before bed. He slept beside me with his muzzle nuzzled into the hollow of my chest. We lived alone, Bear and I, in a wooden house away from town. Bear seemed to like this, would tread the perimeter till the grass dried in a halo. When the rain came we found ourselves with a moat. Bear seemed pleased with this, would huddle closer to me in bed, would wake before me and watch me shudder in sleep. The truth is, I didn’t know horses. I had no books but mirrors and a few yellowed photographs of what I’d left. Bear grew and I noticed things. A familiar glint in his eye I must have carved, a restless twitch about his mouth. One morning I awoke to find Bear’s clawed paw on my naked thigh, three lines of dried blood he’d drawn in sleep. I had to chase him out then, through the door and across the moat where he didn’t pause. I had fixed his eyes forward like mine so he could never look back.

Published in Weave Magazine 2009.

The Solar Panel Your Father Bought Me for Our Anniversary

———–after Michael J. Hartwell

He says the fact that I don’t like it
means I’m getting old. He says
we’ve lived long enough that we’ve
done roses and diamonds to the death.
It’s the future, he says, it’s technology,
get used to it.

But if you’d visit, you’d understand.
If you could see it, orphaned black
box in the front lawn, the flamingos
craning their necks to get a better look,
wondering where the rest of the plane
went down, I know you’d agree.

Didn’t we always have enough light?
When you were a girl, can you
remember? Didn’t we do well enough
without this black mirror? If you’d visit
you’d forget this was your home. The glare
reflected onto the aluminum siding
paints the whole house stark white.

 

Published in The Oakland Review 2007.