Bev is a social being
Your words are so damaged
I am compelled to suspect
They may be poetry
As Emily Dickinson knew
When the top of her head
Began to come off
That she was in
The presence of a poem.
Your images
Ignited by resentment
Exploded in our heads.
Your laser sentences
Melt down our cool.
Your atomic words
We fear
If the reactor overheats
May self destruct.
On the last day of classes, she and Lisa
Came up to the desk. For our most patient
Teacher, they began. Patient? I,
Who at home rages at my children’s litter?
“Wait,” said Lisa. Eleanor has made you
Something to suggest patience: a single stalk
Of ripened wheat finely drawn in ink
On gray rice paper matted and bordered.
Yesterday I snapped my fingers and laughed
At Eleanor’s faraway blank stare during review.
Often she came in late from art class.
I recall her running up the stairs
In painty smock, her champagne hair tied back.
One day she wore a blue-green-yellow
Batik dress dyed, patterned, cut,
Fitted and sewn by her own hand.
At the spring arts festival my child and I
Watch a boy with smiling eyes insert
Her flow-dyed filter papers in her lighted
Viewing box. The soft colors glowed.
Her last theme told of a girl who ran
Out of the house to watch a spring sunrise
And found in the meadow a second sun, a daffodil.
This lily of the field will light up my memories.
Here is an English garden of sun – and water-
Loving annuals. Tenderfooted, we step
Along beach towel borders enclosing clusters
Of marigold heads, pansy, faces and petunia mouths.
Johnny jump-ups explode in our path.
Cockscombs posture casually alert for photographers.
Clouds of dissonant sounds billow and swirl
In a summer camp kitchen: a helicopter eggbeats
Sea froth, surf launders jellyfish on the washboard
Of the sand, voices tinkle and clatter, like a swashing
Sinkful of enamel cups and steel utensils.
A delivery truck beeps like a microwave oven.
But as we wade along the shore, fog
Like stage smoke transforms the scene from circus
To hobbit barrens sparsely interrupted by turrets,
Moats and bridges, earthform architecture whose small
Engineers scurry to mound up dikes faster
Than tidal dragon breath can melt them down.
Venus-like vapors convince us we are treading the strand
Of an ocean planet where alien life forms
Sprout from the soil: two halfsize humanoids
Rooted at the waist, a monkey face necked
To a sanstone pyramid. But we are reassured we are still
Earthbound by frequent gleams of video lenses.
Reluctant to return to roles of cookery and housewifery,
We splash on until for brief interludes
We are the sole inhabitants of moonscape dunes.
Then we reverse course and teleport almost
Instantly back to the parking lot, pausing
Only for a fortifying shot of diet soda.
SPANISH INTERLUDE
(For Pauline)
Behind us crystal curtains
Flow over royal fountains.
Madrid’s sunlight is unkind
To our aging skin, but her pixie
Style bridges the years
Since I last saw my earliest
Friend. We were spanked
For crossing streets and wheeling
Doll carriages around the block.
We whispered forbidden secrets
And played ring-o-leave-o after dark.
Now we have escaped for a week
On a trans-world getaway
From family responsibility.
Palace flags flap.
Sipping diet drinks,
We watch a gardener shaping
Boxwood towers. Having sought out
Marzipan, porcelain and damascene,
We are free to recall paella
On Fishermen’s Beach, staccato
Heels and castanets, Velasquez’
Golden glow, reflections
Of roses in Moorish pools.
Lacy arches, Don Quizote
Tilting with windmills, olive trees,
Neanderthal caves on Gibralter, and
At El Escorial the odor of mortality.
(First published in Lip Service Magazine, Spring/Fall 1987)
She was folding clothes when the caged bird in her chest
Rose in a final spasm of wings
And all was changed for her husband standing on the deck
Cleaning the grill from the Sunday barbecue.
Concord grapes lay on the table, a modest
Harvest eagerly gleaned by their sons
But scarcely enough for all the glasses of garnet
Jelly they had prepared to put up.
Her earliest neighbor would remember Maggie folding
Clothes: first the diapers for the five
Babies, later the jeans and now the sheets
And towels of houseguests who used to be children.
Who would bake the pies from the seventeen quarts
Of frozen blueberries? Who would plant
The tulips or cook Thanksgiving dinner? Who
Would teach her seventh grade science class?
These are the wrong questions. We should ask
Who will feel the shower sting
Her face in the morning? Who will watch her dogwood
Slowly drop its white tears?