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Betina Evancha Poem
In the art gallery where sharp-edged women
stop their strides abruptly before famous paintings
... of colored squares-
In discussions of a novel, where sex is not exactly
sex, only a metaphor we squint eyes at eachother
across wooden tables, desperate to see-
In conversation, where the surety I felt for you
has faded to an ache across my ribs,
faint, but still not nothing-
In a shape-shifting world
where I am taught the shades of
subtleties in the tipping-forward of a smile,
skin striking skin, and
red against blue,
I only want to be white on white,
a small child with a red hair-ribbon
frantically scribbling smiles
in bright yellow crayon.
Copyright © Betina Evancha | Year Posted 2007
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Betina Evancha Poem
Monday
I am your best friend filling
your red wagon with 23 speckled
glass marbles, sitting like indians
and drawing circles in sand,
laughing at tiny collisions.
Tuesday
I am your mother, leaving
your father screaming in the doorway,
filling your questions with silence
and your hunger with soup-kitchen
cereal and homeless-shelter beds.
Wednesday
I am the teenage arm around your
waist, the hair beneath
your hands, an echo of the pounding
bass. You float in a cloud of bliss
or lilac perfume.
Thursday
I am the the woman next door
getting the newspaper in a fraying coral robe—
so desperately angry—leaning over a fence
to shake one withered finger
at your child’s infernal noise.
Friday
I am your daughter clutching
a lollipop in one sticky hand,
your pant leg in the other, dancing
on your toes, laughing.
“Why are you smiling, Daddy?”
Saturday
I am your best friend gripping
the rails of a hospital bed.
I am shudders and weak reassurance,
a spindly hand in yours,
and the long-forgotten clink
of glass on glass.
Copyright © Betina Evancha | Year Posted 2007
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Betina Evancha Poem
The day I first saw my mother fall,
I had outgrown tattered black tights,
temper tantrums, and tiny plaid Christmas
dresses lousy with red ribbon.
Wrapped in the cool of my passive dislike,
I watched her toe miss the bottom stair
and arc upward, her body curving
like a question mark,
her lips a horizontal gash.
Five stairs bit her heel, collapsed her knees,
arched her back, rammed her shoulders,
pounded the rear of her skull.
After the tumble of sound,
she lay still, eyelids pulled
over the picture of her pain.
When I met my mother’s eyes again,
she was standing, but I still
sick with the aftertaste of fear.
It seems the girl I was is a stranger to me;
trussed up in red, stepping furiously
on sidewalk cracks.
Copyright © Betina Evancha | Year Posted 2007
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Betina Evancha Poem
It was a suspension
of droplets spinning; it was
the grass laughing;
it was watching
the crowd jangle through
conversation, eat and chuckle
and forget you (maybe)
with the aftertaste of punch.
You saw me (or didn’t see me) but
I sat alone on a damp rock.
It was feeling your hands
In the growl of your saxophone;
It was no words; it was
my bones smiling;
it was hating the absence of applause.
I thought (maybe)
You really did love me,
and it wasn’t just something you said
when you knew
I was listening.
Copyright © Betina Evancha | Year Posted 2007
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Betina Evancha Poem
No home, he says,
eyes sliding up the side
of my cheek, glancing off.
He means this-does-not-hurt-me
but I feel the icicles
gather there.
He grins and I build
stainless steel curves
spanning tumbling rivers,
morning touching skyscrapers
in a galloping race of fire,
window-boxes with neat rows
of coloring-book perennials,
a guitarist, a curb-side
case filled with absent quarters.
He speaks and I crush glitter-snow
into muddy gutters; I paint
shadowy entranceways, corner
restaurants with tottering old waiters
and pizza dripping shimmering grease.
His hand against my shoulder
is split-second recognition
on crowded streets, neon puddles,
a spider-web of echoing
subway caves.
When zippers chase themselves
around his bags, he sees distant
billboards and hesitates;
He leaves, streetlights winking out
across my eyes.
Copyright © Betina Evancha | Year Posted 2007
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Betina Evancha Poem
Knowing
that the keyholes between
your fingers won’t take me
laughing down daylight cobblestones,
knowing your winter blue eyes,
water off snow, won’t shelter
the perfect controlled growth
of corsage or skim carefully
along the dress that my children
will admire in photographs
years later, pointing sticky fingers,
asking “is that daddy?”
Seeing in you alleyways
dripping water long stale,
hands knotted up tense against
cold stone, wearing thin gloves
the next days to hide the skin
your impatience rubbed raw,
Seeing in you the power to take,
crashing mouths with no pretense
at intimacy, to rip inside,
to curse and destroy the echoing halls
of the way I have painted myself,
And imagining myself
coming to shreds already,
it’s no wonder we have a hard time
with conversation.
Copyright © Betina Evancha | Year Posted 2007
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Betina Evancha Poem
collectors
dropping footprints
in idle sand, eyes wide
fingers hanging empty
delicate shells, bits of
sea-glass, heart-shaped
rocks, the foundation of
'I love you.'
an intake of breath, crouching
toes buried digging through
dirt and then
scrubbing the prize
clean, nestling it with a smile
inside her pocket
or illusion,
her eyes dull, her hands
slack her conscience
waiting.
Copyright © Betina Evancha | Year Posted 2007
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Betina Evancha Poem
something about the air stinging my cheeks,
my hair whipping sparks
against the cold, my shivery stride,
made him call me "cute,"
but I didn't feel adorable and small
at that moment, only half of me
laying down footsteps next to his,
the other part imagining the distant countdown
of my chances
to fall in love with him.
wincing.
maybe next time.
my shoes are too small for balance
on these cobblestones, swaying on paths
I must have memorized, sverving, heels leading
my thoughts in amazon wanderings, mapless.
It’s too bad that kissing a boy
is not a strategic manuever.
later, I catch myself looking wistfully
at a boy with quick, sure hands
frying rice.
Copyright © Betina Evancha | Year Posted 2007
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