Salem Song
October’s losing its dull yellow teeth
mother of field mice,
queen of chrysanthemum
dead flowers clutched in clenched fist
in this month of yellow leaves and red
sun with smoke wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl
It is easy to blame the early dark, the empty cellar, especially when
witching hour comes and goes without candlelight
we are all so hungry in the market of misplaced things
famine of memory, or maybe truth
An animal scuffles the forest floor
tail tucked into a steel trap
the men mistake it for a hairy specter
lay down inert and intimate with the dawn
bring nothing back but soup bones
In the dandelion daytime, children help peddle silver spoons
practice bloodletting in case of plague,
peeling scabs off skinned elbows
singing soft between beestings
they get their fill of rainwater
and we raise them on ragweed and skipping rope rhymes
leave them dreaming alone, three to a bed
while we sit in the city center
watching the magician’s wife flame into a
scarlet flower.
Viable Organ
After “My Heart” by Kim Addonizio
That roll of quarters for the phone call home
that three-way mirror in a department store dressing room
silver and speckled as the premonition of prophets
dream-spangled girl, divine as David
that chipped porcelain angel rotting in the rain amongst rhododendrons
that list of names stamped in the back of the library book
that baby bird buried by the creek bed
that funhouse, that freakshow, those twins with two heads—
that horror, that headstone,
that hole in the damp dark earth—
a mass grave for daughters who died with dish pan hands and phantom labor pains,
unmarked.
The Weight of Skipping Stones
Grief takes the stairs two at a time
rocks in the pockets of her raincoat,
bright pink and borrowed from love,
unsure if the next step leads to the river or the road
Flash flood warnings sounding over someone’s second-favorite song
Car headlights diadems in the summer haze,
in this royal procession from parking lot to drug store to stop sign
I coronate a Camry, brassy and brave as Diana with its tchotchkes tumbling from side of side of the dashboard,
No navigator on, with a wet dog hanging from the window, this is the Princess, bulimic and bewildered
I carry it all in my rucksack, because I, like anyone, have a bag and a body to carry it all, still a student, books and browned bottles and broken teeth.
I take the stairs two at a time, just as my grandfather taught me, just as my grandfather did before he died,
Because time is just at the top, wearing the raincoat of love, her pockets turned wrong side out, all her treasures of pinecones and skipping stones scattered over the foyer, and I gather the sticks and mud and a frog and snail, stay there, so still, on my hands and knees.
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