Chastened

I fear for myself, for the warmth in my face,
I am one that blushes at some things
and would rather.


-


Choose this small hollow with cold and reliable
rocks for company, safe
in the confines of a narrow purity,
cleared from the twine of complexity.

But lonely. So cold and so stonelike my brain
shuttles and grunts like stiff iron, fearing its own firmness,
washing out the cracks where things might grow.
More afraid
that color washes out with each rinsing.


-


Dyeing is repeatable.




Quote: Kiran Desai, "The Inheritance of Loss"

Free Members

Are we always compelled into rebellion
by the backside of a magnet? Always
keeping just far enough away

I recoil as from flame,
from cold air,
from anything too much like absolutes, like netting.

Letting myself be still just long enough
to have my edges drawn
in chalk on the pavement then
jolting into contortions to prove it
all wrong.

In some mild way I will be other than. Be bolder
than I was before, but meekly...
barefoot in November.

Purple Loosestrife

This is a poem I've been wanting to write
for a long time.
A poem about purple loosestrife,
because Tanja told me their name,
the name of purple flowers
we passed in the car on the way to a teahouse
three months ago.

I thought at the time I'd write something
deep and rich and varied, maybe
throw in phragmites or algae or something
brown and bubbly but I never
got around to writing               anything

about purple loosestrife, and wrote very little
about anything else either, until now.

Small

Lord, if you're gonna make me
make me into something small.

Something you can hold in the palm of your hand
singing like a seashell when you bend your head.

And if you make me a bird,
make me a brown bird, with wings too short to fly far with.

Name me anything at all: boot, thimble, spoon, oil,
as long as I am yours.

Beautiful

What kind of flower child did you turn into?

I should have known in middle school

when you told me you wanted to name your kids

after paint colors: Alizarin, Cerulean, Thalo, etc. -

I thought you were nuts but too pretty

to abandon to yourself. And that's the problem.

Everthing has to be beautiful for you. It would be easier

if you judged beauty by perfection or expense

but you loved your grandmother's cheap thing more than my 

eighteen-carat bling, you called it. It has original beauty,

it's lovely because it's ordinary and unexciting," which makes me wonder

about me. What I'd give to know if you loved me for my unexciting nose.

You're lucky I don't have allergies. I'm patient but not -

that - bush on my desktop, too. Not another bird. You hush me:

he's sleeping! I only just got him to eat. For the life of me I can't

see beauty in that naked gangly thing. Or take

the way you leave pastries and notes for everyone in the office. Won't let me

complain about anyone, because everyone's 

special and unique and     beautiful,

and they have hard days too. I started throwing thank-yous out 

before you saw them but nothing daunted you, until this.

How you asked me meekly to open the blinds I can't forget. You never

sighed before, for yourself, but you're wan now and wilted and I can't

remember all the plants but you don't seem to care that Ruby died.

What's the point of life if I can't do something beautiful?

But that's not right. Since the day you were born your face lit up the room

and you weren't even trying.

Seven Scatterings

I. Indian Jew

I will marry a Jew.

An Indian Jew,

with a thick beard,

and dark eyes,

and no history

of women.

II. Heaven

Heaven is my heart

made large enough to love God

the way He deserves.

III. Sweater

There are hairs in this sweater

that look as if someone hugged a dog

a white dog over and over,

up and down.

IV. Leftist

Scintillating leftist flutter

in my belly, shake my leg

and wonder shyly, (angry), wryly

why I cannot bear

to bear another name.

V. Forced 1

Who will toss

and torrent dialed

clefts, the brassy cool dead

after-floor, lofty, whole, no crack.

VI. Forced 2

Pickled belly button magenta

glass, glad eyes, spat laughter,

languor laid in sun on another

stiff pillow.

VII. Padme Amidala In My Dreams

She rolled barrels up the belt 

and stacked them in a pile.

Barrel on barrel, 

barred board 

on barred board,

smiled sweetly, petite

brunette in white, tight flexible

clothes.

VIII.  Oatmeal

I ate oatmeal for a week,

three times a day,

to make sure 

I wasn't dreaming.

I wasn't. 

But I still can't say.

We can read sentences now.

Isn't it amazing?

Phonics felt impossible back then.

Leaf

In this lonely holy place
where I have brought but two, I sit
on the stone where a year and a half of layings
have worn away the moss.

A rising heap of rocks. The cedar
with an old nest, anchorite
as ever, leading my eyes upward
as I lean back.

Today, a leaf
long-expected, three years coming, fell
against me, rested.

Yellow birch, pressed in Deuteronomy
now, after one kiss.
Did this just happen?
Word that we are made of, He found me first.