F o r c e d
inside the old forms
(I will make them fit
though they are
comfortable as shoes
two sizes too small),
I walk, limping slightly, hope
you do not see
beyond
the tensed jaw/closed smile
Do not ask me how I am.
If I open my mouth
I will not stop screaming.
I tire of the virgins
that tremble
on covers of dime and drug store novels
whose honor
carefully guarded
flutters between thighs
so eager to part
& the heroes
sickeningly predictable
bore with sardonic stares
& kisses that bruise
the pages turn
to premeditated sunsets
and orchestrated consummation
where doors politely close
for the sake of blushing matrons
with pink curlers
in their hair
Because you are
I do not see the first violets, feel sun
warm my bare skin. Spring begins
and I do not look for eggshells,
robin’s nests, forsythia
In dreams I touch your mouth
I would like to tell you
instead, I cover my smile
with pale fingers, hope
you do not see
how my hands tremble.
Night wraps her, familiar
as the old velvet robe
empty in the thrift shop window
she passes.
Like lover’s whispers
recalled in dreams,
she knows the voice
inside wind,
& skin remembers its precise caress,
a pattern traced to please.
the moon is closer
to her window
than it has ever
been, so
she must
open her arms
in ritual embrace
that honors
the ancient ellipses
binding planets & sun
in their movements
together.
Closer,
the moon moves her
suddenly
into rhythm
old as desire uncoiling
the spine,
pulls blood deep
into bone releases
hot & full
beneath skin
waning now,
the moon must
answer a stronger draw
past sky
&
always
just past touching
moves away,
wraps night
like spangled velvet
around a need answered
but never satisfied
*****I originally wrote this at the lunar perigee in 1992–still not completely happy with it, but I like some of the images. Does not feel complete somehow.
old glass fractures sun
to rainbow splinters
hot enough to scorch wood
while mechanical birds
call back and forth
wound singing:
neon parrots
scarlet macaws
ultramarine parakeets
chained to the same song
over and over,
an old skipped record
interrupting or punctuating bored women
hawking watches, hatpins,
fragile silk scarves tenuous as cobwebs
The bird voices
wound up or slowing
twine with shouts
of sunburnt men
fondling cantaloupe
round and heavy,
bloodwarm tomatoes,
voluptuous peaches.
The song
winds down over
some grandma’s china
too fragile for use
too ugly for display
Unwound, the birdsong
is a siren insisting
I must want beads
bright as August,
or crave pearls
cast in sunset plastic
the birds sing microwaves
and a Maytag with a wringer
to trap long hair
whisper that if their wings worked
they would stream
ultramarine and scarlet
cerulean and crimson
Those wings
would shape a clean wind
to scatter baseball cards
& bubblegum rings,
overturn shelves
stuffed with pulp fiction
& 70s harlequins
to liberate
a book of Roethke’s poems;
full of bones & water
& sun
that turns my face up
for a kiss.
so many sinners
loved this woman
that his fists (heavy
for such a small man)
become iron
cast to hammer words
like coffin nails
into this podium
or through the palms
of the god-become-man
he loves so much
it should be Sunday morning
instead of a Friday afternoon
funeral for a woman
who was so rebelliously alive
on Monday
& did not plan
to be in the box behind him
this soon
hey,
when a baptist preacher
smells opportunity
he pounds the sermon in
too late for her
but ours
are souls ready
for harvest
Susan Daniels Poetry 