Category: Norwich Years

THE CURRENT

The third week of September the beach

Is almost empty, but the tepid

Water foams around her ankles

Soothing as a jacuzzi.  Sand

Rushes down between her toes.

Wading out, she lifts one knee

And then the other over the boiling

Suds that try to push her back

To shore until the viscous sea

Transports her on undulating wings.

She strokes out, watching the summer

Scene reel past like the window view

When the airplane taxis down the runway,

Until she discovers she is a passenger

Much too late to cancel her ticket.

DISCARDS

Exquisite crystal starts as potash,

Lead, the whitest sand, and cullet:

(Broken glass from previous batches

That helps the raw ingredients blend.)

Ballooning slantwise on the iron,

Molded with a crooked handle,

Flocked with air bubbles, the glass

Without regret will be pulverized.

Engravers paint with unforgiving

Wheels, smooth and refine designs,

Their hands remembering all the angles.

One slip and the bowl is back in the cullet.

I like to look up at the chandelier

That glorifies the dome of the mall

And think of the hands that did not slip

And the fragments resurrected there.

NUCLEAR THREAT

This solitary passion cuts the core

Out of my apple.

Bloodless lasar surgery burns

A frozen section

Out of my heart.  I stare at the eclipse

Of the sun and go blind.

My tongue is welded to the icy iron

Knocker on your door.

A falling meteor consumes itself

Inside my womb.

My radiation count is high.

Beware of me.

I could be tranquil as the summer seas

If you were here.

Your kiss would turn the strychnine I have drunk

To sparkling burgundy.

EGYPTIAN STATUETTE

(for Jennifer)

The swimming child is as slim

As the stem of a daisy.

Who carved her eased the knife

In a sharp caress

That shaped her slender thighs

And outstretched arms,

Prenubile breasts and tiny

Waist.  Her hair

Is gathered at the side –

A young girl’s style.

Her toes are dancer’s points.

She may have held

A fish between her hands.

The golden foil

Of bracelets and broad collar

Have left their marks.

She was not a commoner.

I want to buy

Her replica and give her

To my granddaughter,

Who only last week swam

To me as straight,

As juvenile

And as ephemeral.