Two Poems

 

Seasons After Sara

I
When winter spins I will have forgotten
how the other cheek turned, sharp left,
jaw hinged, your lip a riot ready to cinder.
My mind will not falter even with your eyes
all glitter more winter than snow,
certain of ice and a color, exactly joy.

II
When spring returns I will not remember
the sound of your name, a single song
or slight breath, I will curl my fingers
through each season no longer your waiting
concubine, your scent will become
nothing more than a forgotten daffodil.

III
When summer calls I will have tired
the moment, dried it upside down
with the heather in our kitchen,
I will become a shred of sun in a half
eaten sky, dangle my way into the fall.

IV
With autumn I will have braved my own
tongue, placed a feather plucked from the wing
of a crow behind my ear, I'll tattoo a howl
beneath my quarter Indian eye, one blink
and two nods before I shuttle another season.

 

On Searching For Mother

"Further up, my darling, the woman
is calling her secrets, little houses,
little tongues that tell you." -Anne Sexton

I have her incestuous eyes, yet
my smile is not as bold
my voice, one less cigarette.

She's lean as a sapling, legs
a wilder forest etched in the lower
branches south of her waist,

a plum pit of secret.

I am a summer behind her fruit
blossomed out of season, a window
ornament in my Sunday dress.

The bed is quiet, I am starved.

Her voice frightens me, Stringbean
mommy, soggy thumb, a thirty-four
year old girl pressed against
my chest, her weight gigantic.

Her hands make me nervous,
the way her fingers curl, move
around me, the forgotten child.

I beg her to return to the mother
I adore, the one with her back
pressed to God's calling on winter.

Her voice a mettle of words,
"Goodnight moon forever,
goodnight house."