Tuesday poem thread 6/23/09

This Is Where You Are

Alessandra Lynch


This is your sill. White
out. Out of the picture. This
is my foot. Once. In your mouth.
On your rug. In your crotch.
This is my picture. Not
where you are. Not docile
snow. Not obedient
rain. This is not sun
down. This is not twilight. This is
not my favorite place for illumination.
This has little bearing on cloud. This is
not the high tower where we work
our hearts on clothesline. This has
no mercy.

Is this the bird Stern
told me to write? Is this the poem he
told me to write? About birds. He said
protect the green stone. Protect
the marigold. He said protect the iron
link fence and tall breath
of ceilings, the rose firewood, the shabby
soft brick. He said stand by your walls
no matter how shrunken the stone. No matter
how cheap the cement. He said don't drop
guard. Wear a gun. Effect moss.
He said watch out for the ice man has planted.
He said they're all bad (trying to unravel the shrill
chicken skin that is always ours that we do
not love or cannot love while saying we do).
Protect yourself, he said.
(In two words he tried to dispel bad
loving.) Did he swear by them
through the wine and fish and strawberries
when they lurked the skullock table,
when their pale wind wracked the sumac
and dashed the few birds I'd handled?
Did I?

We hadn't even the cracks
of a heart to feed, not
a trickle. (No breath left to spell
any name. Let alone ours.)





:hi:

Bravo! :applause:

:kick: ;)

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