The starlings. They protect my heart.
Kiss me and you can feel them fluttering.
"Aren't you happy?" you ask.
It is only the starlings rising in black unison
because your desire has disturbed them.
I am a molasses girl. I am what is left
after refinement. My heart is a vat.
Open it and drown
in starlings sugar-drunk and rushing
headlong into whatever will make you go away.
If I talk in my sleep near dawn,
it is just the starlings screaming from every tree.
I will bathe in the oven,
until my body is a cookie you can carry.
My familiars will follow, testing, screeching, objecting.
They are my dark dowry, the price you pay for more.
________
for Dverse "Strange Houses" (of Lee Madgwick) The art at top used with permission.
Music: Jonatha Brooke "Made of Gold"
The images keep coming and coming - so much to admire her. I love the way the starlings circle through the poem, like the way they circle through thst house.
ReplyDeleteIntriguing, original and delicious.
ReplyDeleteDeliriously twisted with that dagger of an ending line: They are my dark dowry, the price you pay for more.
ReplyDeleteWell done! And great take!
ReplyDeleteBeautifully dark, angry, and wonderful Shay.
ReplyDeleteStand back, genius at work! Self destructing has never sounded so beautiful.
ReplyDelete"I am what is left after refinement. "
"Open it and drown in starlings sugar-drunk and rushing
headlong into whatever will make you go away."
Just outstanding. I could have copy and pasted the whole poem!
Whoa! Potent vat of molasses.
ReplyDeleteMasterful write! I was blown away from this.
ReplyDeleteGreat love 'starlings sugar-drunk'
ReplyDeleteThis poem leaves me breathless - the starlings, the evasive heart, each stunning, startling line. This poem lifted off, and swarmed around with the starlings. Wow.
ReplyDeleteDear Shay,
ReplyDeleteStarlings as familiars, a “dark dowry” of protection against pain: and the molasses girl giving herself away, oven-baked in tangible sweetness -- or not, The fragmenting ambivalence and restlessness, so beautifully captured.
~Dora
A molasses girl, the vat heart... it sounds like the starlings took the rest... they look a lot like smoke.
ReplyDeleteI read into this piece turmoil, uncertainty, anxiety and self doubt. A challenge to a lover to find the love necessary to overcome these starling familiars. To pay the price. It feels like a tragedy, but not without hope. It is a potent piece of writing. seanatbogie
ReplyDeleteThe first three lines of that second stanza blow me away. That is some of the most powerful imagery I've enjoyed in some time.
ReplyDelete~David