Ktaadn
What was lost, again, the hot sap
that burnt my throat with, well why not, joy.
Did I own in or just borrow it
from eyes that should be cool but were not, were hot.
A moment's forgetting, did I turn to see
some other sort of startle in the grass,
did I stoop to heal the afflicted
beasts that lost their eyes and wings.
How often is too often, what if
this heat tore through me constant
as the sky I tear apart, claiming,
This is mine, well what of it.
Let's see who's still standing when I burn, again,
when the mountain is set to the match.
Coffee & Dolls
It was a storefront for a small-time numbers runner,
pretending to be some sort of grocery. Coffeemakers
and Bustello cans populated the shelves, sparsely.
Who was fooled. The boxes bleached in the sun,
the old guys sat inside on summer lawn chairs,
watching tv. The applause from the talk shows and game shows
washed out the propped-open door like distant rain.
It closed for a few months. The slick sedan disappeared.
One spring day, it reopened, this time a sign
decorated the window: COFFEE & DOLLS.
Yarn-haired, gingham-dressed floppy dolls
lolled among the coffee cans. A mastiff puppy,
the size and shape of a tipped-over fire hydrant,
guarded as the sedan and the old guys returned.
I don't know about you, but I've been looking
for a narrative in which suffering makes sense.
I mean, the high wail of the woman holding her dead child,
the wail that filled the street. I mean the sudden
fatal blooms on golden skin. I mean the crack deaths,
I mean the ice-cream truck that cruided the alphabets
and sold crack to the same deedle-dee-dee tune as fudgesicles.
I mean the raw scabs of the beaten mastiff, and many other things.
As Fish
They play us as fish are played,
nameless they tug on the line.
One who has it in for me yanks my mouth
against my wishes. She once fed me
air that tasted like violets
melting and since I have been ravenous,
snapping at the least hint of sustenance.
If I knew her name I could offer at her shrine
a candle, a scrying, a fish fry,
to beg for mercy, but my offense
was too great for such gestures
as I can manage.
(c) 2002 by April Bernard. All rights reserved.
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