Free Verse
Excerpts
from Above and Beyond*
Ink
Drawing: Brown & White
You stand before you fall
on the scrubbed white square
you call your kitchen.
Behind on the rent, of course.
Why you take in ironing
and keep this child
whose mother gallivants.
Starved yellow sun peeks
through bite-size windows
you curtained off white
by hanging rags along string
from a ball saved knot by knot.
White flour, white table,
white sheets you have piled
in a basket you call bicker.
Other color is cinnamon.
For snails! Just take the scraps
of rolled-out dough got cut
off of a rhubarb pie and dot butter
‘roun’. Sugar comes next.
I’m a good sprinkler, you say.
Tomorrow, you believe
you will wash my hair. The pail
under the rain spout almost full
when you looked. Who needs
shampoo when you’ve got goo
from soap slivers in a Ball jar
on your sink? People you work
for never heard Waste not want
not? Don’t forget to add
a little vinegar to the last rinse.
Shine on the darkest day. . .
No Easy
Gift
In Memoriam
to Vincent Van Gogh
Monsieur, if you could see
me roll
lazy and fat across your swirl
of yellow, yellow, yellow hay,
or sip a ruby shimmer
out in your yellow-chaired café.
Or bathe in your blued and lavendered
Paris, mirroring magnified jolts
from the diamonds spelled out on your easel
that dreams replace every night.
This is a one-time gift. So please,
come back and paint more irises.
I, like you, am all eyes.
We will steep in your passion
as we butterfly off a balcony
rioting with flowers wild to be fish
so they can swim down emerald
parroted with persimmon and teal.
If you could measure the beat of my pulse—
all our pulses—
your razor would stay.
Sleet Not Expected to End
Dark all day. Wet. Squalls
are strong—
arming rain into sleet. Bullets of ice
calibrated to penetrate asap. Sudden
let-up silhouettes a woman struggling
to say upright. Kids look to be hers.
Boy maybe 4, girl, maybe 6. Hard
to tell. See a doctor scrawl Question
survive. Now big-eyed and street-wise
stick figures step in others' steps,
take their chances Doesn't help
passing thunderheads are seeding
pellets. Hatched shadows cross against
a hoar-frosted light. Flapflapflap
rap soles between slips and slides.
All of us stumble, slide, try to right.
Feet and noses numb as lightning Z's
Zoro-like between corner buildings.
Don't let reflected light fool. Meet
the Prince of Darkness. Soul so charred,
neither ice nor human can revive.
Sees petals once gold freeze to the sunken
cheeks of a 6-year-old, laughs and packs
wet snow around a rock. Sleet is blinding,
but those pants she has on are Men's.
Cut off, but still she trips. Mom helps her up.
Boy slogs on, his cowlick an inverted icicle
or diamond stalagmite. Most of the down
has leaked from his jacket. Mom's coat
doesn't button or zip. Fished from a bin
says Help. Brrrr. Frankenstein's-monster-
stiff, but aliiiiiiive. Aliiiiiiii. . .oh no.
Red neon Coffee. Good and Hot. Smell wafts
as the door swings. Holiday'd windows
with white fur mullions show Cheshires
over forksful of eggs. Butter drips.
Soul for a doughnut. Crunch a cop's shoes.
Shelter's down that way. Stomp-stomp.
Person could freeze on a night like this.
Twilight to
Who Knew in the Land of Long-Ago
Once there were open windows
and unlocked doors.
Summer evenings drew out like musical scores
created during low-key swings in elm-strung hammocks.
The smacking sound was a softball bat lobbing
a homer out of a hollyhocked alley or a vacant lot.
Occasional scream a child letting herself be chased
during a game of hide-and-seek. Shouts were joy
out on a lark; hunting trips reserved for errant baseballs
and empty Miracle Whip jars to store lightning bugs in
as long as they could breathe. Just enough car exhaust
wafted to lend piquancy to lilac, gardenia and marigold.
Marigolds ick, but fresh-mown grass and the healthy sweat
of children switching to playing Roy and Trigger
and the odd late supper of home-grown, hand-shelled peas,
new potatoes, butter beans and fresh bread go miles
toward making us forget what won’t be forgotten.
Screen doors scraw open, shut, open, shut, open
as Heinz 57 dogs and kids conveniently deaf to
adult shouts, and porch swings and rockers sough-
saw-sough beneath grown-ups raring back to trade news
liberally spiced with gossip in voices taking their time
while keeping eyes out for the kids. Dark won’t be a
problem.
Big, farm moon beginnin’ t’peek through threads of color.
Quiet slips in on tiptoe. Why, you could hear a rabbit hop.
Think I do, and it’s in your Victory Garden!
Teasee would run and check but nothing makes the mouth water
like ice tinkling in a pitcher on a summer night.
“Jooooooooohn-neeee. Oh, Joooooooooooohn-nneee.
Got leeeeemooonaaade. Suuuuuuuuuuuzie,
come hooooooome. Everyone laughs at the idea
of a kid pellmelling home for the privilege of being told
it is time for bed. What are you, a hundred?
a neighbor cracks to a calling father. Ain’ ya heard?
It’s the good ol’ summertime. Let them stay out
a little longer. Think you were never a kid.
Were you? Tired chuckles chuckle. A radio
announcer’s honeyed vowels drift through screens—
Don Ameche? -- but most folks turned the racket off.
Too nice a night! Might even need a blanket.
“By the liiiiiight,” someone croons, “of the siiiiiil-ver-ee.
. .”
Tomorrow? Tomorrow can take care of itself.
Got skeeters t’fan away. Got pillows to get right.
All we plan to count is blessin’s. Amen to
that brother. Amen to that, sister. One life to live,
let’s live it here on the porch watching twilight thrill
to shades of blue and purple studded by more stars
than ever. Ahhhhhhhhhh, it feels good
to get off your feet. Ahhhhh, the way an unclipped hedge—
rose goes to your head when stirred into White Shoulders,
Old Spice and Sir Walter Raleigh. All a body needs
is the rhythm of a long, slow sunset followed by a long,
slow tune
playing in earth’s most popular night spot.
*Publishing details
for
Above and Beyond in The Book Fiar
