The February of a Heart

 

Here is something from the February of a heart,

cigarette smoke caught in a bell jar,

roses in river ice.

She was dark haired--half onyx, half common crow,

a revised edition of herself,

a slow-fused Chinese firework.

What is there to say now, in too-bright summer?

Her presence made one feverish,

a Vienna of the blood, a powerful champagne.

To be delirious is to be happy, as falling birds are, briefly.

Her smile a trespasser, she owns unsteadily, carelessly, 

one's fine, burning, hotel of the moment.

Here is something from the February of a heart--mine.

One recovers precariously from enchantment,

feather in hand, but sorry the way birds are, when they die.

________

For Word Garden Word List #1. 

art: Gustav Klimt "Golden Tears and Kiss"

From The Curve Of A Blue Womb

From the curve of a blue womb,
the one at the far reaches,
but as close as the next breath or the first,
the last,
spun from the flung white shine of a million stars,
into this space as narrow as a letter slot,
delivered by a Divine hand into a bone bowl,
blinking,
sitting here, writing this poem.

From the curve of a blue womb,
by way of the jaws, the wound, the perpetual shriek
of the keeper, the watchman, the madwoman,
set into a ready cage,
stripped of language and sex,
set out to dry and called art
by blind idiots with broken hands holding dawn in a coffee cup.

Something has been making its way up the stalk of my spine,
by increments, by prayer, by instinct, by race memory,
an insect, an emotion, a soul-flag strung on a line,
lifted by animus, by glory, by reflex, by holiness,
a mouth on a face on a body on its way
from solar plexus and on out through lips as an anthem or a gasp.

I'm telling you these things in your arms, in confidence,
in darkness, in fear, in recklessness, in sound mind,
in breakdown, in nakedness, in touch, in aphasia,
everything that curls and weaves and strikes within me,
this storm passing over the island of your body-sanctuary,
and losing strength even as strength is gained,
leaving bootprints in blood all the way from the start of the circle
to its end, a path out of myself,
through an impossible gauntlet of everyday 
spiraling up from the half-lit heavy pool of me,
aiming for an element only dreamt of in fevers and in ecstasy,
promised by absent angels speaking from the aviary of flesh and spirit combined.

From the curve of a blue womb,
I come spouting rot, nonsense, paperback scripture,
recipes for holy observance, bank holidays, disaster, doubletalk,
finding only in your kiss a distillery for spirits and the restless dead,
the quick, the clever, the blessed, the crazy, the torn apart, the unsatisfied,
the wise, the wept, and simple coneflowers
tossing like anti-aircraft gunners in the breeze
at the foot of your steps,
inviting me to at last fall into them, 
into you,
into some kind of peace I barely remember,
and which only comes back, for a gorgeous moment
when I am loving you.
_______ 
 

Infirmity

Dr. Van Stiefer, a man alarmed by illogic
and disquieted by the slightest chaos,
opened his surgery on Carriage Road East
to very little fanfare.

That would shortly change.

As a medical student, Van Stiefer could barely contain
his boredom when faced
with the halt and lame.

At St. Cecilia's Hospital,
attendings had to stop the young man
from amputating in cases of sprained ankles
out of ennui and expediency.

But now,
now is his moment.

Dr. Lars Van Stiefer has a revolutionary idea.
He hopes it will alleviate, or entirely prevent
an array of difficulties and infirmities.
He will treat romantic love as a neurological disorder,
like tremors, or rabies.

His patients, beset with every variety of odd behavior,
will be brought in by stretcher,
sedated,
and he will bandage their hearts, tightly,
with clean bandages,
leaving only the tiniest new scar.

Good order will be restored,
and following a brief period of recovery, 
they can go back to work,
or to their wives and husbands,
ready to face life with new health and calm.

Dr. Van Stiefer is celebrated, feted, 
asked to speak before august gatherings of renowned physicians.
The dreary halls of St. Cecilia's fade into dusky memory,
and the doctor takes to his celebrity
with dignified grace.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Van Stiefer's womanly emotions
begin to wobble on their axis.
When the doctor arrives home,
without ceremony,
without display,
without humor,
she broods, and piles his plate with medical texts,
inviting him to use them as
supper or suppositories,
though she does not phrase it exactly in that way.

Unknown to him,
she forges a sympathetic connection with his nurse,
a certain Miss Pelby.
By the time they have lunched once,
been to the variety stage show twice,
and kissed a third time,
the wheels are greased for her own severe case of nervous illness--
that is to say,
Love.

No surprise, then, that Dr. Van Stiefer,
faced with the unfamiliar landscape of this domestic hiccup,
should have brought her,
the very next day,
to his surgery.

Was Mrs. Van Stiefer homicidal?
The doctor's own writings declare this an impossibility
in a woman of good background.
Still,
she was found in the waiting room by a medical equipment salesman,
with a bloody sleeve and a fit of the giggles.

Dr. Van Stiefer's esteemed colleagues,
arriving at graveside,
discussed among themselves what ought to be done for the new widow.
"Death by misadventure" having claimed her husband,
it was decided,
for her,
by these learned men,
that the prudent thing would be to recommend her into the care of the late doctor's nurse.

Mrs. Van Stiefer stayed on in her house,
under Miss Pelby's expert care
for the duration of her uncommonly long convalescence.
________

Thank you to Shawna for the word list!

Wait

Wait for me,
wait--
where the river runs
softly south.

Night will come,
night--
let her let her silver
stars come out.

Stay, my love,
stay--
though the hour goes
two, then four;

Then come, my love,
come--
and you'll never have to wait
anymore.
_______

Rosary

I have a rosary made of birds.
I have an ache made of your absence.

When I am praying, the birds stay with me. Stars replace them.
This is my arrangement with the sky at sunset.

Sometimes passing trucks sing the street; other times footsteps.
Sometimes God laughs; other times She is silent.

Holding birds in one's hands is holy.
My hands know your name, and the braille of my body in its longing.

I always say the same prayer, to be nearer to you.
I have a rosary made of birds.
_______

 

Vamps

The beauty of it, honey,
Is that we don't know what we're doing.

We're like 1916 silent movie queens--
Stars of a medium too new to have any stock scenes.

Let me cake on the raccoon eyes and vamp--
You drive the open-top car, and we'll both wear enormous wide-brimmed hats.

We might be speaking Russian--
The silents keep it hid;
We can never say the wrong thing, honey,
Nor confess it if we did.
_______