Loss

You, the tree
cannot stop change.
There is no convincing the leaves to keep their green.
No whispered begs pause


the loss.


Cherry buds
turn, turn, turn
grey winter air
pink with the unraveling, loosening
of petals, the undoing of laborous months.
And you, in turn
fade, fade, fade
from pink to
grey.

Surrender, Detach, Salt Salt Salt

This gift will last
Until you’re gone
And then, spark
Flint and fiber
burn.
Your eyes
Too closely set, count the stars between
Scorpion and justice—poison
penance
and this gift
tumble to earth, briefly gather dirt
And return, home.
Salt, salt, salt.

I have, have, have

Has your nine year old self
ever wandered through corn fields
row by row, peeling back tassels, husks
of almost-ripe-almost-ready-not
not
not
yet, silver queens? Always hoping
the next one will be

close your eyes

big
yellow
juicy
enough to sentence to the boiling pot?

Barefooted
and wild up and down
down
down
plowed dirt buried toes

heat matting hair to your face?

Or caught yourself in a farmer’s winter field
staring down tilled rows of cold
cold
cold
ground,wondering how far
you’d get if you followed them?

Great Advice for When You Think You're Being Followed with Malicious Intent According to Cosmopolitan Magazine

Make three left turns, then call 911.
Just ask the poets,
the starlets.

Found Poem: Blood Sugar, January Twelve Years Later

At fourteen, my favorite poet wrote lines like,

"I want to speak hot metal fluently."

And

"Watching the suitors stagger home,
Now I'm butcher, now you're bone."

And

"Young girls tie ribbons around their slender throats
trying to keep their heads on."

On the cover in blood,
I DID IT FOR YOU stained the twenty-something poet's tits.
And Christ, I thought she was stunning.

So, it should not
surprise me now
that remarks from her elegy
overlap perfectly
with my twenty-something own.

"They will not know how many people
you brought into your life to inspire you.
When the affair would disintegrate
you'd say, 'Well, at least I got a poem out of it.'"

I'm just surprised that she's still alive.






_____________________________________________
Excerpts from Nicole Blackman's collection, "Blood Sugar"
Poems:
"What I Want for Christmas (and other holidays where we speak of dead men."
"Chrome"
"The Ambitions Are"
"Elegy

Monday: Do Not Buy Me Gifts

Mirrors lean on walls

One: white frame, rectangular

Two: round, turquoise, robin’s egg.

Neither of which belong to her. A symbol, I wonder

for the ease with which all could be (has been?) abandoned.

Finally, at last and at once. 

Two red pots

A box of paints

packed, into the passenger side

of the only car she’s ever owned.

Nodding toward the easel in the corner

“More paint, fewer strokes.”

and two small foxes emerge.

Displeased, a third is produced

and the laundry tumbles. 

Cowardice

Today, at exactly four in the afternoon, as the gods of wind and rain assembled the clouds--in three quarter time no less--I felt brave. Just briefly. By 4:04, perhaps sooner if I’m being honest, all the fear had returned as:

Buddhism

Your (very specific) eyelashes

The likelihood of dying young

Ivory statues

The men

The women

“I think you know who you are.”

Pygmalion (mythology)

The crook of your nose in stone

Sculpture; nonsense.

Patterns

All the heavens, in all the worlds

Cells

 My habit of blaming the moon, Venus, Ovid, and the tides

for not kissing you

(neither you me) twice.