The Fable Of The Matryoshkas

When I met you, you already had
almost everything.

You spoke, and from a halved lime,
a golden-eyed tiger stepped.
From the tiger's mouth, came vermillion birds,
and in the birds' beaks,
silver rings to please you.

If I had told you I loved you then,
I could not have borne the weather of your face--
a clear sky of indifference,
or your smile, constant as any equator.

I knew,
that to win you, I would have to get beneath your heart--
I would have to fold my yellow wings,
with their India ink edges;
become vermiform
and as light as a ghost's fingers on a cotton ball.

There I slept.

After six Novembers and a single Spring,
I opened my eyes--
a solitary traveler when I arrived, I had become four.
You felt the North, South, East and West of me
within yourself, nesting your heart,
as if you were a Russian hat, and I, Medusa's vanity: her hair.

Now, we are together forever,
like bone and limb
or
the closed and golden gates of your almond eyes.

I am more than content to be your courtesan,
your slave,
your palm leaf, arched over you like Desire's own angel--
but if you dismiss me,
all the matryoshkas of our union will break.

You will see me, at last, as I really am,
a constellation of spilled confectioner's sugar
anointing these shattered nesting dolls
with their linseed smiles,
drug store red lipstick on every jagged edge.
_______

Matryoshka dolls, also known as Russian nesting dolls, or babushka dolls, consist of a series of similarly painted dolls, each one revealing a smaller doll inside it, down to the last and smallest doll, which is typically a baby.

Both images were found on Weheartit.com. 

Chickamauga Sharon

Chickamauga Sharon was a licensed mortician--
she could rock a back-tied smock
and cook the books, too.
Her lips left long enough to the ear of a stiff
would have them up off the stainless steel and gone to the liquor store,
picking her up a snort
to get her through the afternoon.

Sweet little me and Chickamauga Sharon--
what a hot mess that was,
both of us all over the place and warm to the touch.
No telling where one began or the other left off--
just us
setting the drapes on fire,
filling the flaming heart of the best June on record.

Chickamauga Sharon stayed sweet until July--
that's how I learned that what starts out hot
doesn't last very long.
She got cooler, and came back to herself
like a candle burning backwards,
gathering its wax skin and going out,
down Lee-Gordon Mill Road
to a meeting.

Every night at 8,
she sat at a table in a church basement--
straight and cold as an unlit taper,
with only the tip of her tongue to play
the innocent wick;
not telling who she really was,
or where she'd been--
just a jasmine-scented girl
waiting for the right red-head to smile and be
her next struck match.
_______

Heads

Heads in
relay boxes
wait for postmen to come
to place them softly in their bags
by night.

By night,
bright-keyed angels
gather the weary ones,
and, graceful as birds, home in and
head in.

By night,
the blue-trousered
messengers soothe their cargo
as if kisses were a postmark
from God.

From God,
by carrier,
the rescued heads are sent
to outward points by hand, by day,
by night.

Heads from
relay boxes
will change the world under
aegis of the eagle and its
glory.
_____

This is a crown cinquain for Marian's mini-challenge at Real Toads. The top photograph is hers, and is used with permission. It shows what look to me to be postal relay boxes. Collection boxes are the familiar marked blue boxes, but relay boxes are unmarked dark green boxes which are used for temporary storage of items to be picked up and delivered later the same day.

A Liar's Prophecy

"You will never be anything,"
my mother told me often,
"Least of all beautiful.
Least of all loved."

She also told me that I never listen,
though I do.
I listen, but I keep my own counsel as to what I think about the things I hear.

Years later, I slipped into sleep
like bare feet off a smooth shoreside stone,
and slowly sank.
My hair was long, so long,
that it trailed in the currents
around the coasts of South America,
and I held starfish in my hands
which sang, impossibly and in languages beyond interpreting.

I stretched myself naked on the backs of orcas,
and across the arms of pink anemones,
but it wasn't until near dawn
when true beauty found me and settled itself in my humble flesh.

Still drifting, I stretched my legs out together,
long and sleek like a mermaid's tail;
I felt the rise and fall of the waters I belong to,
and those currents
those warm, containing currents
were just your arms
circling in sleep, around me.
______

for A Word With Laurie at Real Toads. We were to write something "phantasmagoric." 

A Progression Of Responses Upon Receiving A Love Poem From Shay

• Wow! Can I read it right now?
• Wow. Can I read it later?
• Wow. In a minute. I want to watch this commercial.
• Wow, I can't stop yawning!
• Wow. Maybe some time next week.
• Nice sentence structure.
• Wow. It has sentences.
• I read the first sentence.
• I must have lost it.
• Get lost, Shay.
• Zzzzz.

__________

a 55 for the G Man.

Bolt & Burrow

Out here there are those who dig and those who bolt.
There is surge and panic.
There is the split hoof and the blindeye.

There is the red African sun.
gone orange, going gold.

I have babies;
I hide them in the shade of thorn bushes.
I have the softstep
and the loose-backed sprint--
I'm on you quicker than your next thought.

I am not the strongest here,
nor the most ancient,
but I am the most immediate.

Will you linger, just long enough?
Will the new grass turn you stupid with satiety?
I am a stranger to that;
it is a luxury I can't indulge.

I wonder, under the now white-yellow sun,
will I be the engine of my cubs' survival--
the mother of their learning the savage crimson heart of this place,
our home?

Or will a dark burrower be my undoing?
Will the timid digger's den be my last fast step
before I stumble and fall, 
broken-legged and doomed?

There are no answers yet,
only dust, the next breath, hunger's unrelenting imperative,
and the gold of the African sun
gone orange,
red,
then disappeared until tomorrow.
______

for Poetry Jam, where the topic is "The Beast In You".

Poem For Love & Healing

If I were a florist,
I would grow mint, catnip, sage, and blackberries.
I would arrange them with red roses,
asters,
and blue violets.
I would speak your name over them.
I would deliver them to you with the sun at my back,
in the late morning,
by hand.

If I were a waitress,
I would bring you apricots, raisins, honey and ginger.
I would bring them on plates of white earthenware
edged in blue.
I would make sure your glass was green,
and the table yellow.
I would serve you by name,
and satisfy your desires--
even the ones
you only dreamed.
_______

All of the herbs, foods and colors in this poem are considered to possess healing qualities.

Red roses signify love; asters and blue violets represent love and faithfulness.