Written by
Craig Raine |
Divorced, but friends again at last,
we walk old ground together
in bright blue uncomplicated weather.
We laugh and pause
to hack to bits these tiny dinosaurs,
prehistoric, crenelated, cast
between the tractor ruts in mud.
On the green, a junior Douglas Fairbanks,
swinging on the chestnut's unlit chandelier,
defies the corporation spears--
a single rank around the bole,
rusty with blood.
Green, tacky phalluses curve up, romance
A gust--the old flag blazes on its pole.
In the village bakery
the pastry babies pass
from milky slump to crusty cadaver,
from crib to coffin--without palaver.
All's over in a flash,
too silently...
Tonight the arum lilies fold
back napkins monogrammed in gold,
crisp and laundered fresh.
Those crustaceous gladioli, on the sly,
reveal the crimson flower-flesh
inside their emerald armor plate.
The uncooked herrings blink a tearful eye.
The candles palpitate.
The Oistrakhs bow and scrape
in evening dress, on Emi-tape.
Outside the trees are bending over backwards
to please the wind : the shining sword
grass flattens on its belly.
The white-thorn's frillies offer no resistance.
In the fridge, a heart-shaped jelly
strives to keep a sense of balance.
I slice up the onions. You sew up a dress.
This is the quiet echo--flesh--
white muscle on white muscle,
intimately folded skin,
finished with a satin rustle.
One button only to undo, sewn up with shabby thread.
It is the onion, memory,
that makes me cry.
Because there's everything and nothing to be said,
the clock with hands held up before its face,
stammers softly on, trying to complete a phrase--
while we, together and apart,
repeat unfinished festures got by heart.
And afterwards, I blunder with the washing on the line--
headless torsos, faceless lovers, friends of mine.
|
Written by
Philip Levine |
1
We live here because the houses
are clean, the lawns run
right to the street
and the streets run away.
No one walks here.
No one wakens at night or dies.
The cars sit open-eyed
in the driveways.
The lights are on all day.
2
At home forever, she has removed
her long foreign names
that stained her face like hair.
She smiles at you, and you think
tears will start from the corners
of her mouth. Such a look
of tenderness, you look away.
She's your sister. Quietly she says,
You're a ****, I'll get you for it.
3
Money's the same, he says.
He brings it home in white slabs
that smell like soap.
Throws them down
on the table as though
he didn't care.
The children hear
and come in from play glowing
like honey and so hungry.
4
With it all we have
such a talent for laughing.
We can laugh at anything.
And we forget no one.
She listens to mother
on the phone, and he remembers
the exact phrasing of a child's sorrows,
the oaths taken by bear and tiger
never to forgive.
5
On Sunday we're having a party.
The children are taken away
in a black Dodge, their faces erased
from the mirrors. Outside a scum
is forming on the afternoon.
A car parks but no one gets out.
Brother is loading the fridge.
Sister is polishing and spraying herself.
Today we're having a party.
6
For fun we talk about you.
Everything's better for being said.
That's a rule.
This is going to be some long night, she says.
How could you? How could you?
For the love of mother, he says.
There will be no dawn
until the laughing stops. Even the pines
are burning in the dark.
7
Why do you love me? he says.
Because. Because.
You're best to me, she purrs.
In the kitchen, in the closets,
behind the doors, above the toilets,
the calendars are eating it up.
One blackened one watches you
like another window. Why
are you listening? it says.
8
No one says, There's a war.
No one says, Children are burning.
No one says, Bizniz as usual.
But you have to take it all back.
You have to hunt through your socks
and dirty underwear
and crush each word. If you're serious
you have to sit in the corner
and eat ten new dollars. Eat'em.
9
Whose rifles are brooding
in the closet? What are
the bolts whispering
back and forth? And the pyramids
of ammunition, so many
hungry mouths to feed.
When you hide in bed
the revolver under the pillow
smiles and shows its teeth.
10
On the last night the children
waken from the same dream
of leaves burning.
Two girls in the dark
knowing there are no wolves
or bad men in the room.
Only electricity on the loose,
the television screaming at itself,
the dishwasher tearing its heart out.
11
We're going away. The house
is too warm. We disconnect
the telephone.
Bones, cans, broken dolls, bronzed shoes,
ground down to face powder. Burn
the toilet paper collected in the basement.
Take back the bottles.
The back stairs are raining glass.
Cancel the milk.
12
You may go now, says Cupboard.
I won't talk,
says Clock.
Your bag is black and waiting.
How can you leave your house?
The stove hunches its shoulders,
the kitchen table stares at the sky.
You're heaving yourself out in the snow
groping toward the front door.
|
Written by
Frances Mayes |
Cat stands at the fridge,
Cries loudly for milk.
But I've filled her bowl.
Wild cat, I say, Sister,
Look, you have milk.
I clink my fingernail
Against the rim. Milk.
With down and liver,
A word I know she hears.
Her sad miaow. She runs
To me. She dips
In her whiskers but
Doesn't drink. As sometimes
I want the light on
When it is on. Or when
I saw the woman walking
toward my house and
I thought there's Frances.
Then looked in the car mirror
To be sure. She stalks
The room. She wants. Milk
Beyond milk. World beyond
This one, she cries.
|