Copyright 2009 Constance Lee Menefee

All Rights Reserved 

 

If Only

 

Perfection

is a stubble-tongued whore

who clacks her bedroom

slipper false-teeth

and twitches well-oiled hips

knowingly

you coulda done more

you shoulda done better

if only and if only

you’d sweated harder, never slept, tried again,

double-checked, revised, replaced

been worthy

deserved to be right

it would all have fallen

into place

by now.

 

Widow

 

What is

not

is larger than life

dark alone silent

even in the swollen heat

you sit cold

thinking what happened

was a bad

dream

until you realize

you never slept

waking to the wait

of some other outcome.

 Labor Day In Juneau

 

Juneau took out is false teeth,

hung them on the bedpost

and swallowed the townsfolk:

we had the place!

Followed piers,

pointed at pot-bellied boats

and wharves

banded

with barnacles, black mussels

and deeper in heavy green water,

frail anemones;

I put a monkshood flower

in one braid and two alder cones

as we laughed, closing in

on the harbor

stumbling gulls

lifting, settling, uneven flock

brusque fish-salt smell

ripening the sea spray.

   

Ceramic Cup, Looking In

 

Drinking beyond the cup:

gray, that is, the impression of gray

bunched through fortuitous

limp winter sky blue

over leaves once-wintered brown;

gray, that is, the impression of gray

as weather-drubbed rock

wont to lichen.

Tight on glazed sides

tiny bubbles -- eggs of a silver frog and

one might soon see flickers of tadpole hatchlings,

twists and glimpses of light

on bright skin as they fastly brush

noses against sheer crazed walls

of this deep rock pool.

 

 

We Sat and Watched the Ice Break Up

 

Who could have slid a fact

under sky, lifted

it away from sea?

I swear they grew into one --

We hung in their pouch.

 

 

So Simple, Summer Love

 

Under a sometimes wind

waves made gull wings

on shore,

white feathers lost their birds --

they’d hiss and suck and

I knew just hearing

how water met land.

Behind the door,

I knew just hearing

you had come,

pause of sliding cloth

while words dropped closer,

until under the sheets;

I felt that sometimes wind

still on your breath, your face and

gull wings in my ears.

 

Starts

 

First thing the

cat’s ear

brushed my lips

an artichoke bract

stiff but soft with warm

butter;

the geometry of morning --

breakfast --

I see you so briefly but

the day fits together

after.

 

Unseasoned

 

There are always things left unsaid

about fall,

just so simple

they go unremarked:

a skein of green

runs through autumn

until its late days

when it frays pallid

fibers back to skinflint soil;

autumn tangles

under the weight

of its own issue

and the madness of harvest

stained finger purple with grape,

not so much the fruit

that matters

as the heavy sunlight

across a crackling meadow.

 

Something else about fall --

as you’re giving it chase

it will turn and nip

puppy-like oblivious

with its milk teeth,

and the snipping nights

that come,

but winter is another time

and there are things

best left unsaid about it, too.

 

April

 

One morning, after one night

it always happens --

a green film;

then, it is surely,

cross my heart,

spring.

 

This year

I hurt wildly

and remember my dying...

but haven’t yet, only held

to grayness too long.

 

Now I am stabbed by petals.

 

 

Leaving at Midnight

 

After hearing her

story,

my skin seemed to float

out softly

billow

like gauze curtains

around my bones

and felt unmarked

and safe,

an uneasy boundary

sometimes –

thin border

claimed by two

sovereignties,

surely not protection,

because some women

have their crust

pounded flat cannot

cast off

blue-purple staining yellow

black blossoms

like their wedding bouquets

death do

them part,

as if they were

unmerited

simply by being woman.

Umbrellas for the Walrus

 

One of the great

summer surprises

was an invasion

overnight, which along the

Arctic Ocean

is waxing and waning always light -

tide pools each fitted

like a glove holding

a giant beribboned parasol

softly pulsing away

its peculiar, precarious

version of life:

we were just sky

and tundra separated

from the sea by rounded magic

rocks that bloomed from gray

to flowers

in the mist –

and of course, the

sudden jellyfish.

 

Origami

 

I fold my eyes

and see a swan,

crease the new day

into an iris, a butterfly.

I fold my eyes

and see

each day as I choose.

 

Nostalgia

 

Don’t cry on my shoulder wind.

You’ve come unbidden

pulling mould and

forest-earth crumbs

into my night --

untoward bursts lisping

of cloud change tomorrow;

trees are used to your frettings

but they unease me

from my chair;

somehow wet-woods smell

leaks under the door --

as if disquiet weren’t enough

you creep into my nose

and fill my head

with warm, soft nights

already resolved.

 

Morning

you’re always gone;

so just leave now,

and take

what is yours.

 

Answer to a Grandfather (World War I)

 

It’s over, let it go,

no more words

no more writing, the time when none

of us were heroes

on the hill

and you say, again,

what can be gained

by getting the story right

getting the words fully

when there can be no

rightness in metal

and bone

changing places

turning young soldiers

into corpses

our memories curtained by

a fine spray of red or mud

what does it matter now --

bringing the war home

from the front

like a second naughty head,

bobbling sideways -- talking back

you were less, less

than enough or worse, maybe chicken

and no one ever knew

but it fusses

in your real ears

of things done badly

or fearfully,

you were the only one so wrong,

it gibbers

so you say let it go, no more words

what can we gain

from going back over that ground,

running our fingers around

that hole trailing dirt crumbs

and burning:

well, grandfather,

the war always leaks out,

all over your daughters

and your sons

and their babies you cradle

with a book in your lap, finding

words for only that

as your babbling silence

crusts the family with

yellow secrets

tinged so lightly blood-pink,

shame spots uncleanable

except by true words:

you must have guessed:

it won’t ever let go.

 

Pain As a Fine Vintage Wine

 

Pain grows

in many seasons,

each batch bearing the

special mark of the flesh

in which it roots;

even as I ache and twist

its bouquet draws me close,

to sip again

just in case it won’t

prick back,

hoping it will only

envelope my tongue,

sweeten my throat,

in case the intoxication

at last warms me joyfully,

but each swallow

drives

caustic corkscrews into my toes,

bedecks

each finger with burning rings --

I know it will,

even as I put my lips to the rim

because I know it so well,

so much better than the unknown

of not hurting.

 

In February

 

Where it’s now iced night

the afternoon ran rampant

over fine-stemmed,

wafer-leafed

weeds

and shin deep snow;

wind rasped puckered seeds,

chimed dry oak leaves

against a pearl-gray sky

stubbled with tree fans;

bright colors were round and hard,

bittersweet and rose hips,

or soft and round

scorched orange underbelly

of the towhee

beneath a tree beset

with puffed cardinals;

leathery-green honey-suckle

leaves

not letting go

and lavender veins of blackberry

canes

as tearing sharp under snow

as under berry.

 

Day

light leaves piquant air,

drains down rift-barked trees

frays off drifts,

finally puddling in footprints

that cradle 

moonfall.

 

Solo

 

Morning falls

all over itself --

I danced all night

god, I’m tired of knowing

how to be alone.

 

We

 

The past has found

its boundary

I won’t push

Now

You and merely I.

 

Let’s Play

 

Here we are:

I’ll win my father’s love

and you can reach your mother,

dress up, make up

we do this so often

I can’t find myself

and overlook you.

 

Our Gift

 

We always feel

easy,

woman,

in loving:

keep your legs

together

soul closed

suffer empty.

 

We may as well suffer full.

 

Feeding Hummingbirds

 

It isn’t so much

a thankless job

but translucent,

and just sometimes

comes a wee chirp and blur

through the insistent

trumpet vine

hanging its orange

flowers around

as if

we wanted them abundant,

a quick stab of sound

in the summer bug and bird

symphony

darts past --

elemental bird

model of an atom

dense in the middle

and electron wings

whirring about a life

occurring mostly otherwhere --

beak quick to the sugar water

and zip into the hedgerow:

between episodes of hummer grace,

I think about

other things

I’ve done and doubted

that throw their own light

more elsewhere

but nonetheless everywhere

and refill the feeder.

 

Harmony on God’s Lips

There was at first

a moon

thin, round rice-paper disk

translucent on a morning

sky

until disappearance

right after the laboring squirm

of geese

called for autumn

to come faster

out of the green

still surrounding us;

the pokeweed bloomed --

always declaring its own season --

purple berries and green,

alongside waxy-white flowers;

a frog spoke

quickly on the jump

as insects danced and verged

and made lace over the mud;

ragged spiderless web

hung in tatters

festooned with scrunchy blue-black

old leaf fingers

caught,

trembling

while the wind strummed

along blue spruce needles,

humming of what might yet unfold;

on the fence row,

some trees escaped the height

rule set by rusty-wire and

stuck

up tall

carrying tiny patent-leather grapes

in community bunches

up nearer the sun;

crow caws and tawny soy bean leaves

married ear and eye, I didn’t know

how like caterpillars

soy pods looked --

a ravenous hoard indeed

if they were chewing, not ripening;

swifts stitched and twittered over

water, a scattering of sunlight tears

breaking,  winking, and flowing in golden

ribbons, bounded by shore-muck,

rippled back onto themselves --

and, sweetly, the wind breathed

away pain,

letting loose our grief with milkweed

explosions.

 

Open Heart

 

I have hidden

behind a heart of stone

in darkness

too long

held fast to suffering

unlovable

in ways known only to my

soul --

so certain of being

unworthy,

frightened like the tiniest

quivering birdlet uprooted

from woven stick cradle of

softness and sustenance

by a wind that only blows

unknowing, unaware --

afraid of being loved,

afraid of being seen and

still being loved,

barely feathered-over

beating tender bird-flesh

heart,

no protection

except behind the stone

which holds fast and cold

against

the wind.

 

I Want My Own God

 

What I need most

I cannot take --

Faith is the fish-hook

always barbed

to hold

first the bait,

the lure,

then the catch

without mercy

snagged by rules

someone else spoke,

held fast to a god

someone else wrought;

I wriggle,

trapped by my own needs

so pressing

a golden point

and sodden worm

will hold me fast

to emptiness.

Pain As A River

 

This thing

this pain

is inside out --

its definition,

its course

is mine, alone, to name,

and I know it as

tributaries of nerves

like little brown creeks spilling

alongside railroad tracks

banked with patent-leather leafed laurel

and green-feathered hemlock

through coal towns

at the mercy

of slick-mud, clay-cheeked water

spinning

creamy eddies higher and higher

until everything -- outside in --

swells over the moment

and I am up to my neck

pulled along, thrashing,

to yet another whirlpool

or tar-black stump snag

and plead for deliverance

instead I am a headline:

FLOOD CLAIMS ONE,

NO KNOWN SURVIVORS.

 

Where I Am (Not)

 

And I thought,

it is such a perfect autumn

day

I should go somewhere

to enjoy it – more –

where the cloudless

blue sky

is bigger or

bluer -

I should go where

the trees tremble more

exactly in

the breeze

better – more quaking

and scintillating,

green-yellow blades twisting

each on a fibrous

cord

in the soft and silky gusts:

it is such a perfect autumn

day

to be where I am

unable to see

I can never be

where I am not.

The Path of One

 

You are many

skins -

wax paper thin

laminates

of wants needs expectations

stuff-yearning

lovelorn disappointments

and clutch your

crinkling layers

to an aching longing heart,

bunched squeezed

clutching death-grip tight

as if these casings were

real

and mattered;

release fingers, one by one

or a hand all at once

and let the shadows

slough

fall away

lay at your feet,

nudge them away

with your newly free

toes;

walk out, walk on

do not be afraid

of the first surprise of life

on exposed self-skin

welcome its authentic breath

on who you are,

be it

and be it!

 

From Parents’ Unhappy Childhoods

 

Blame shame

knit purl

pick a bale of cotton

bad good

bad bad

blame shame

again

again

I am I

in eyes of my parents

at fault for being

a baby bundle

of pointless soft love

and needs, please

feed me, carry me, change

me, hold me, feed me,

talk to me, look at me

at me

at me who I am

too exuberant

too knowing

too caring and speaking

so much I overflow

my want banks

and am dammed

and damned

and blamed and shamed

but that was yesterday;

today I am I

in my own

eyes

and I am now

myself.

 

Making Scents of It All

 

I am skin.

An integument of odors

and clandestine

wishes

like for bacon – forbidden

pleasure salty, fatty –

and taboo Indian Red

bleeding all over

and between my toes

under the influence of

sharp, nose-knocking nail polish

remover, hiding persistent carmine

in the valleys of my feet;

as well, the honey-salt

pearlyfish scent of warm

enclaves –

along with Vadalia onion

lording it over the lavender

floating on my palms:

I pull in smells and try to store

them up like nuts tucked

in tiny meteor holes by

squirrels whose maps must be

better than mine

or they’d starve –

the aromas are elusive

runners away when I try

to dig them up, the

smoky sweet perfume

of mysterious

wisterias

or mellow scent of autumn

and its winds -

part loss and part

revelation.

 

Too Early for the Sting

 

Where August

butts into September

the sun slip-slides

into yellow jacket light

swarming us

with fair fire

that never burns

but scorches leaves

into scrabbling colors that dun

and drop

divulging the twig-lace:

I wonder how apples

newly born each season

know

anyway every year

how to turn ciderish

where they land.

I Am Always

 

ready

to be

left

void

unfilled

alone

and my chest

under the skin,

tight to the bone

is tattooed with

burning ache

scarlet ink message

squeezing my breath

down out of the way,

don’t open little heart

no point

it all goes away

sooner, not later;

always ready to be

let go, turned away,

frozen out

I see it all through

a prism

of abandonment

because, after all, I

am less

not so much to love

or they wouldn’t

always

go.

 

October

 

I know

the roses have gone

but for a curled crisp

afterthought

but

I go outside

anyway

in the sharp air

blunted with early sunlight

and my breath

puffs softly

white

like pollen

promising

bloom then fruit.

St. Valentine’s Day

 

I wondered if I pierced

a tiny hole, blood let,

let rage

squirt out my head wouldn’t ring

with knowing

my mother, my father couldn’t love

because they could only speak

in tongues of loss and lack;

the first time I almost exploded

in my brain

was over love, or rather

over not love

and I wondered if my mouth

would let the spew

rage out about

having to stuff my own

heart into valentine shape

with snatches of words grabbed

from other lives –

how good, how sweet, how funny, how glad we are

she is our child –

closing my eyes I could almost pretend

as I shoved the filling into the saggy velvet heart

hanging loose in my chest -

I was that wanted child and not

an accident, an inconvenience,

a warm body of need, need, need,

what did they know of need except their own

which sucked the air out of my lungs

and left me gasping until I thought

about a tiny holes in my flesh

for relief, instead

I sprayed my green Quaker parrots

into globe artichokes

round and full of feather-bracts,

joyful in the water trusting

ready to dip into the love I have

tried to grow on my own from

seeds I found around.

 

On Being the Center of the Universe

 

Young green

earnest in the truth of

myself once

feeling all eyes

on my skin thinking I

was the center of their gaze

the target of their words

recipient of opinion

but they were focused

through me to some other

place

of their own.

 

Open the Windows Anyway

 

Rain arrhythmias

fast and blathering, smacking

still entire, off-tree leaves flat,

then slackening to sweet mist:

I listen for gusts

or some other explanation

for this odd swirl of almost-December air,

spun with warm, dizzy molecules

that stowed away on a jet stream

slow boat from China ;

I found a flowering quince branch —

earlier, in a steady fall of drops

that caught me as I walked —

with three bold red-orange blossoms;

I could use such heedless,

mutant optimism,

opening without regard for

winter’s quick closing step.

We Are All Too Something

 

Odd fish, square peg

misfit

disconnected

glorious in our imperfection,

gleeful with self-pity

because

we are wretched

like no other on earth

until we see our tooness

makes us one:

too much, too little

too early, too late

too fat

too skinny

too intense, quiet,

black, white, red or blue,

yellow, too rainbow,

too transparent, too fast,

too slow

too up or down, too poor,

too rich, too well,

too ill, too busy, bored,

compulsive,

careless, too stiff,

too dumb, too smart, too

floppy, flabby, rigid or

crooked, too straight,

too deaf, too blind,

too broken or together,

too soft or hard, tough or

easy, too strong, weak, powerful,

meek, selfish, selfless,

too hot or cold, too ugly,

twitchy, still, too lovely,

flashy, dull, glum or silly,

too sweaty, too dry,

too mad, happy, asleep,

awake,

too godless or godful;

as for me, I am too loud

even

when I whisper.

 

Crows In a Moment Passing By

 

I caught them

almost

quiet:

pine tree dreams of

slick black rainbow feathers

within branches armed

long, spiky needles

clasped by sweet sap,

roiling caws

started and black shapes

with shaggy tail feathers

bobbed out along limbs

took flight

long, sweeping flaps

leaving the trees

still.

Hunter’s Moon

 

It isn’t the usual moon

hanging around like some

gibbous creature

waiting for completion:

this is a moon that has

been places and seen things;

large and ripe

and mellow creamy-orange 

it draws our inner tides

into the confluence

of the cosmos,

coaxing our cell water

into lunatic rip tides

as we howl with

bare-branched autumn

delight

to be alive.

Midnight Sun

 

Fine sea spray silk

scarving

around our cheeks,

first early morning

walk

curled inland

on hollow crunch

beach ridge gravel:

we ended up

holding hands.

Spring Grievance

 

There are several ways

to feel about trees:

a kite flyer

sees witch’s fingers

greedily seeking bright paper

and cloth

from high and gusty March airs

snatching treasures

and wrapping shreds

about the nodes and knobs

of unloved knuckles;

but, understand,

she is lonely, unleafed

so don’t begrudge her

the wooden-spined butterflies

she unwings to flaunt

as spring’s first blossoms.

Pain As a Pair of Red-Velvet Evening Gloves

 

I can turn myself

into a sack

a warm sack of moist bones

starting with my toes and drawing

heaviness

up slowly, carefully over my calves

and knees, stopping to feel the

softening, the release, then,

covering my stomach and chest

with mental flannel

all the way up over my chin,

mouth, nose and eyes --

but my arms

still don’t get it,

they lie burning, pulsing

muscles pushing out against

skin like shrink wrap resisting

so I must turn them into

long, red-velvet evening gloves

from each throbbing, stinging finger-tip

on up

and then I peel them off carefully

shove them into an imagined glass cage

-- a terrarium for poisonous pets --

watch them twist and squeeze

each other like deranged

tango partners

beset with sudden loathing --

and I lie quietly

breathing deeply in

breathing deeply out

observing pain in

my mind’s eye

until the gloves begin to tire,

dropping quietly

in a boneless heap,

red-velvet turning

finger by finger

into glowing silver-white light;

I let the radiant gloves

slide gently back over

my fingers, across my palms

and wrists to my elbows:

I am finally fully unified.

Word of Warning
 

What happens

to our word waves

do you suppose

after they part our lips

and dive off earnest

tongues?

Do they creep out windows,

cat burglars stealing off with

velvet bags of lovespeak jewels

or a papersack of

grubby, muttered spitball

curses;

maybe

slide away

backs to the wall

guns drawn

out doors like cops

at the ready - leaving

us baffled

and ever uncertain;

might they stick to walls

ceilings and floors

slowly building up

like yellow grime cigarette tar;

where do these word waves

make landfall

splash,

end up,

collide or

finally diminish

into nothing

if nothing exists

maybe they live on forever

carrying every utterance

into the pulsars, nebulae, guts

of other galaxies:

oh my god

maybe we should think

before we speak.

Diagnosis -- Glioblastoma

 

It seems sometimes

as if your tumor

lives in a safe house,

secretly de-briefing you

and you never let on

if you’ve cracked the code,

I am a spy --

standing outside in the

sweet fall of new snow,

trying to see what is going

on in your head.

 

I was there all along,

the conscious one,

out in the open,

who watched your surgeon

cry

as he told me,

“It was the bloodiest

one I have ever seen,

I don’t know what I got out.”

 

Yes, it’s all yours,

subletting

your right frontal suite,

but I have to pay the rent

and find some space between

the black-out curtains

to keep an eye on things

in case it defects again and

drags you along.

 

After the First, Another

 

The glioma is sneaky

behind its blood veil,

with blunt fingers

pulls apart

the gray matter

turning it into

deranged salt-water taffy --

I have to look

but can do nothing

except wait for someone

else’s cells

to turn

Benedict Arnold

again.

 

Copyright 2009 Constance Lee Menefee

All Rights Reserved