Third Marriage, Seaside.

 

Go down to the greenhouse and gather the blooms,

then scatter them all in separate rooms--

the rose on the grate of the fireplace cold

to lie there and die there as we grow old.

The arrangements are odd and enigmatic,

the occupants frail and most asthmatic

afflicted with allergies, fear and despair

made worse by the stale and fetid air.

Though we gasp our devotion like fish in a boat

and confess our passion by rite and rote,

we're as blinkered as babes, as clear as bells

as we rise from the drink on our half-assed shells.

_________

for Word Garden Word List--First Love

Without Even the Grace to Blush

 

Humble is the sparrow

on the sill at the end of the year.

Sorry is the miller

who has no barley for the beer.

Vain are the dolls

wrapped with a bow on the box.

Red is the rooster

who rides in the jaws of the fox.

Soft is the ivy

where the robin who died lies so still.

Hard is hangman

who works in the dawn's bitter chill.

Sweet are the tulips

elegant in spring, in summer so terse.

So pale your dying love

as a corporal folded in a burse.

_____________

for Word Garden Word List--Sharon Olds.

A corporal is a folded linen cloth upon which the Host and chalice are placed during the celebration of Mass. The corporal is carried in a container called a burse for reasons of reverence. 

The Silent Bird

The bird does not sing, yet you suppose your melody

swings inside her throat just waiting to burst free.

The bird does not fly, but you suppose it loves your shoulder

as if it were her Ararat, some wonder that you showed her.

Perhaps she's ill and dying, hiding everything she can.

Perhaps she curls within herself like a feathered ampersand.

Perhaps she's silent just to vex you, cruel withholding thing.

Perhaps she sings when you're not there and makes the courtyard ring.

She may have sung before you knew her, then not sung again.

Perhaps she makes of poise and pride a royal diadem.

Does she not love, or does her heart go by another name?

And if she sings, is her voice true or just legerdemain?

_________________

for Dverse Meeting the Bar--positivity through negation