Archive
The Young Woman Who is President
calls the meeting to order; before her sit
rows of old women, grey hair
pinned in neat braids, or clipped short,
or folded into a bun, except in the last rows
wild, flowing over hunched backs,
over straight backs, grey-greeny manes.
she doesn’t know how she got elected. what
drove them to choose her. she does not have
large moles, varicose veins or even
any visible marks, her clothes
more appropriate for the boardroom, navy suit,
black pumps. she calls the meeting to order.
she knows when the women in the back speak up
(they have not yet) they will not speak in words.
their hands are vines. the veins are green and long,
they do not speak in words, their thoughts are leaves,
are branches, they will reach out from the back,
there is a noise already like the wind
in aspen trees, but growing slowly louder,
the rows are blurring as the women turn
toward the back with a sigh of joy. she calls
once more for order, order, the wind rises,
only the first row attends her till they turn
away, toward the trees. and she, too, reaches forth.
by Janet McCann
A Fallow Blooming
She gasps awake from dreams
of wildfires and deserts
to find the sheet scorched in her shape.
Hazy with heat, she staggers
towards a cool shower, closes dry eyes
and sighs as water spits and sizzles off her skin.
Drinking through pores she stands
through days and nights.
Steam clouds into mist, billows from
the window, spirals to suck in air
heavy with spore and seed.
Still, she drips and steams as lichen
grows on eyelids. Tendrils of creamy roots
twist between her toes and cluster under
sagging breasts. Creepers drape shoulders,
caress down her legs, insinuate
over floor and under doors.
New leaves unfurl, shine
with moisture; drip on buds
that swell, bloom and burst
to pollinate the laden air.
Hummingbirds blur to weave nests
from hair, jewel-bright frogs nestle
on mossy thighs and next-door’s errant macaw
preens on her shoulder, indifferent to posters
on telegraph poles and trees.
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Tailor
You pick apart the seams
of me with adept hands;
I cannot stop the fraying.
Words snip and each snipe
forces more tattering,
I slip beneath the meaning.
You pin me into something
new under curses and blood
pricked fingers.
The final dart is stitched
edges diminished, trimmed
with braided compliance.
You wear me with the pleasure
of reconstruction trickling
from the corners of your mouth.
Now I fit fine on every occasion,
lips tacked tight with the invisible
thread held in every tailor’s kit.
by Sonia Hendy-Isaac
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anecdote of air
your wings like lace
blown by wind
on a line
I dream you dragonfly lover
tongue abuzz
the regret that flutters
you braiding light with air
the dip and mock
of your flight
imago
I am split
by Pamela Hart
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Coming Apart at the Seams
(Click on image, then click a second time to view at larger size.)
by Bev Wigney
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Lot’s Wife
I was weary
of obeying.
It was beautiful
to be crystalline.
When the rains came
I merged with them
my tears rushing
down the hillside
toward home.
by Ann E. Michael
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Typhoon
She’s here, an uninvited
guest, clouds clinging to
her coattails.
For her, trees pirouette,
newspapers take off,
calligraphied birds,
the harbour rains
startled fish and sewage,
scaffolding struggles to break
free of its restraints,
walkways sigh and sway,
empty even of beggars.
Lost possessions skeet,
potted plants from balconies,
shoes, a washing line flying
through the city like bunting.
Torn hoardings, road signs,
scuds of glass gyrating in this
carnival dance, the inanimate
brought to life with her breath.
When dark comes,
she blows out the stars,
gutters the moon, veers off
course to the mainland.
We wake to an island in tatters,
the thrum of unfettered things.
by Jo Hemmant
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We are Astronauts or The Pornography of a Backrub
What is TV, really, except light?
What is radio except dark TV,
shot from an antenna cannon out to Jupiter?
What is Jupiter except a dark sun,
aristocratic gasses flirting at cocktail parties,
never to fuse, learn rejection, or mercy fuck?
What are we except bits of Jupiter?
You hydrogen, me helium, swirling
into a night time bomb in outer space,
rubbing smoke but not fire into the vacuum,
caressing electrons, and waiting
for one another to light each other’s cigarette?
What is color except stolen light,
stashed in rainbows for selfish consumption,
our first step toward total nightfall?
What is this space between my hands
and your shoulders, except enough light-
years long for a million tiny Jupiters?
by Robin Sontheimer
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qarrtsiluni 