Blue Swans, Blue Stars

He said I was blue swans, blue stars,

a painted cup on a sill, reflected  lights in the rain.

I said I am a burning book, cinders, char. 

He said I was blue swans, blue stars.

I said I am a loosened stone, gravel, tar.

He whispered, honey and  hemlock sing the same.

He said I was blue swans, blue stars,

a painted cup on a sill, reflected lights in the rain. 

_________

day 17

 

Sadie Hawkins Dance

At eleven, we were hollow-stemmed, yellow-haired flowering weeds,

all taller than the boys,

chained around a crab apple branch like thaw drops.

We were departing swallows

quicker than afternoon;

smug with our lessers, cowed by our betters,

kites with cat-tails, casting for a clue.

Want to go with me?

Say no, say yes, say no, say yes!

Whatever they said, it would be years before we felt this power again,

at the high arc of a cycle of seasons,

calling the steps, knowing the music would change.

___________

day 16

for Rommy's "Fun and Games" prompt at Toads.

Guanacos

At St. Catherine's

Master had a bowling ball in his throat.

A heavy fog drifted around our desks,

in our hair,

everywhere.

Ship's horns blew.

Some drowned.

I still can't identify the hypotenuse of a right triangle

or the bodies of the girls who turned to pussy-willows

during the long afternoons.

At night at St. Catherine's

I was in love with a girl who was not in love with me.

She spent her evenings stitching the windows closed,

while I fell in and out of clouds

like a blackbird in a storm in a book in my head.

St. Catherine's became a sea port,

then an art gallery,

then a candle wax manufactory.

It groaned under heavy currents,

the bricks ran in the rain,

then it caught fire and drifted into the harbor.

After St. Catherine's,

the girl who was not in love with me died

when her skirts became sails and sank 

somewhere off South America.

The guanacos  came down to eat her jewelry from her ears and fingers.

Then it rained but never touched the ground.

St Catherine's girls' choir

saved itself under my skin.

In the silent hours when my new love turns like stirred batter in my arms,

I can hear Handel.

Then I am alone except for the guanacos with their sorrowful eyes

who graze on the lichen in my palm, around my heart, and in this poem.

__________________________

Process note, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Some guanacos live in the Atacama Desert, where in some areas it has not rained for over 50 years. A mountainous coastline running parallel to the desert enables them to survive in what are called "fog oases" or lomas. Where the cool water touches the hotter land, the air above the desert is cooled, creating a fog and thus, water vapor. Winds carry the fog across the desert, where cacti catch the water droplets and lichens that cling to the cacti soak it in like a sponge. Guanacos then eat the cacti flowers and the lichens.

And: 
St. Catherine's Taffy is a candy made by girls in Quebec to honour St. Catherine, the patron saint of unmarried women on her feast day, November 25.^[1] St. Catherine's day is sometimes known in Quebec as "taffy day," a day when marriage-age girls would make taffy for eligible boys. Marguerite Bourgeoys, a founder of the Notre-Dame de Montréal and an early teacher at Ville-Marie, the colonial settlement that would later become Montreal is credited with starting the tradition as a way of keeping the attention of her young students.

C'est Ca

It's you 

with the glass eye,

blue bottle marsh-mud skin,

ivory dog and bus ticket.

It's your child down the moon grass shore, calling.

When he's home, it rains; salt won't pour.

My Ouija child, c'est ca,

the face I love--

it's you. 

______

"C'est ca" (say-sah)  French  = "That's it"

A circle of salt is sometimes used as a barrier of protection against negative spirits.

Rictameter on day 14. Thanks to Hedgewitch for suggesting some forms for me to try.

for Marian's "Eres Tu" (It's You) prompt at Toads.

 

The Social Event Of The Season

Lady Frances MacFarquhar Ford

--of the Frankenmeuth, Michigan Fords--

On Friday threw a Founder's Day fete for her friends.

Fanny, Fredricka, Francesca, Freya and Fuschia attended.

Fanny said, "Francesca, you formaldehyde freak, pass the crumpets."

"Of course, you festering ferret-faced fake," purred Francesca.

"You're both frustrated frog-fisting flibbertigibbets," opined Freya.

Festivities.

Firearms.

Fusilades.

Funerals.

Fabulous! 

__________

A Flash 55 for my favorite friend.

In My Room, A Cricket

In my room, a cricket sings his heavy heart.

Outside, his million brothers, star-drunk beneath a lemon tree.

Why these walls? Why his song? Why my clocks, taken apart?

In my room, a cricket sings his heavy heart.

Why alleys? Why walkways? Why my brushes sick from art?

Why my open window and the summer drowsing carelessly?

In my room, a cricket sings his heavy heart.

Outside, his million brothers, star-drunk beneath a lemon tree.

_________

A triolet for day 12.

 

In This House, The Ghosts

In this house, the ghosts are as common as hung laundry--

they are yellowed newspapers caught behind the lattice-work,beneath the porch.

Down a long straight hallway--the bloom at stem's tip--

a paper lily,

my collection of you, shining with rain.

A woman got in the only way I had left unguarded,

in the steam from a midnight kettle.

She wore silk from Chinese mulberry 

and dismissed me as curator with softness and tongue.

She made her body a maze between me and my lily room,

a baffle for your gifted ghosts.

My desk is in the bedroom now

with an aubade on the wood, in fresh polish. 

________________________

for Micro Poetry "Long Ago Rooms"