Month: October 2012

She touched my jacket admiringly and said we had the same taste,
except she favored black and white, not so much brightness.

I on the other hand was tired of all the overcast shades
in the closet, wanted a shot of lime and vodka, its brightness.

Oh did I say vodka? I meant of course something crisp and light,
not overbearing; something not neon or cloying in its brightness.

The peach and lemony light of summer has swirled away too quickly.
And no one dries their laundry on the line anymore, for brightness.

One-touch and power settings, then time, then start. Then a circuit
shorting, equals a dead microwave. But there’s a stove! Brightness!

Above the clatter of knives and chafing dishes, he said: So when
are you taking me out? That little swell: fishing for brightness.

I exited the hall as the lights were dimmed, and drove toward the water.
The water was all shades of lilac; the street lamps vied for brightness.

 

In response to small stone (162).

Everyone we listened to had such a gift: if not lightness of tongue, then the language of expansiveness so that we sat, rapt, transfixed in our chairs or as if loosed into the suddenly bright highway of sky beyond the library windows, reeling among the birds that must have said among themselves, What drunken fool just hit me? And what of that gift, that beat of song, restless tattoo that lives beneath the ribcage, wheezing and pleating like a bandoneón in the hands of an itinerant musician? I heard it once and then nothing was the same. Light became the space between the saying of a word and the shape that its sound made, flying in the cave of the throat; became a rain-soaked umbrella, became each quickly vaporizing bead begging to be counted, threaded, tasted, forgiven, fed.

 

In response to cold mountain (63).

“…rare, singular, unattainable, but:
here” ~ seon joon

Tonight, after the reading,
someone asked the poet
in the red shirt and black
motorcycle boots which writers
had influenced her the most—
and she replied by recalling
how she had gone to school
during a time when everyone
was lionizing all these great
women poets who had killed
themselves: Plath of course;
and Sexton (who was her teacher).
Then one day a substitute came
and turned on this light—
and she realized one could be
a good poet, even a good,
angry, feminist poet,
and still love life.

 

In response to cold mountain (61).