Frog Funeral

In the greenhouse, I gave myself to somebody,
saying things I never thought I'd say,
despite the hardness of the wooden table and the potting soil in my hair.

I can't remember why I thought it was a good idea, though,
or why I thought that was the place to consummate our love,
or even who it was, because

the shovel was handy and knocked all that right out of my head.

Not long ago, a week maybe--time is fuzzy for me now--
we had tadpoles in the puddles the flood left behind.
As the water dried up, things got dicey, so I decided to try to save them.

Looking into my bucket, the yard man said, "You've only got sticks in there, Maggie."
He was right, and it was only the moss on one side of each of them
that made them seem green and in need of me.

I did manage to save one tadpole, though.

An apron pocket makes a fine frog house,
and though I walked around wet to the skin on that side,
I felt good about saving a life, a remarkable life besides.

I told Mr. John about my frog, and even though something
in the back of my head told me it was a mistake, I took it out,
just to show him. I screamed when he did what he did,

and we stood there for the longest time, both spitting mad.

Later, I took pansies from the side garden
and arranged them in a circle around the small hole I'd dug.
My skirt got muddy and something started coming back to me.

Some of the pansies were purple, others yellow;
looking at them put me in mind of my room, the mirror there,
my bed, and the door I always insisted be locked

against the arc of the sun, like a bucket swung too weakly, and too late.
________

for Susie's challenge at Real Toads.  

1972

Here is a lily, love.
See that y'never doubt me.

I have things to do this morning--
I can't confess them, and even if I wanted to,
they have burned the churches down in Belfast and in Derry.

Here is a kiss, love.
Do you need a promise, to know that I am true?

Bodies are fragile things,
and that is why I touch yours so tenderly,
as if you might be torn away from me in an instant.

You might, love.
There are still snakes everywhere, no matter the fairy stories.

In her palace sits a queen, and she has everything.
Still, her fingers are never satisfied unless they make a rope
to fit my sweet white throat.

I am a banshee, love,
and so I must scream. For you though, for now, I whisper.

God made everything in seven days--
that's what a good Catholic girl can do.
I have inscribed little crosses on the pipes and in the powder.

Remember me, if I should fail.
I have cut a lock of my red hair where your lips have been,
and nested it in a silver locket for you to keep.

Here is a lily, love.
A sticky for the Easter rising. 

I am not much, love, but I'm yours, no matter what happens today.
I am just red hair and some spit for the Union Jack;
a prayer for Mary and the thing that I must do.

 


 

The Winter Queen

I met a woman in winter,
with ice in her hair, like dreadlocks of black and white.
She was frozen to differing depths,
a January pond in shifting weather.

She knew the number of the flakes, 
stretched infinite before us;
she knew the hour of the storm,
and the measure of the movement that each wind makes.

Here is the thing, the odd thing--
she smelled like summer.
There was heat in her, but cloaked,
like the bird who can--but will not--sing.

I looked at her and lit myself for her.
I went up: white, orange, red, black, off into the leaden sky.
Gypsies wear red and gold, black and emerald.
Irish Gypsies tell stories as they burn.

In ice storms, the birches wear silver shirts;
they bow low as if winter were royalty.
My love wears branches of scars spread in inflicted composition;
she carries a cold hollowing within her, a saving space for blood and dirt.

I brought her lilies, her snow-twins sweet...
in spring, black tulips to stir her lips to smile.
Though she warned me, I couldn't leave; when she kissed me I couldn't breathe--
a Gypsy burned without her tale complete.
_______