glory pajamas

you are so hundredfold purple
(like a crow
razoring the early morning)
that even the sun
mistakes you for the moon
and runs away, shedding his shoes,
the closer to airborne you become.




Absence, the first

Is this something
I want to be a part of?
The sky, cast like a net
over our heads? Or
the stout clouds,
throbbing like the
exposed underbelly
of some soft and pliable god?
You're looking past me,
past the power lines
to see those foggy lumps,
unpackaged and raw, like
something you wouldn't
want to eat. The sky
is a grey and breathing heart;
the wind is a heavy feather,
a caustic embrace.
You have grown more blue
and distant
than today.




The answer to hunger
For Jackie

The waiting felt like nothing
so much as a rainy Sunday,
the kind that never quite happens
but filters past the senses instead,
filling the brain and dulling the tongue.
The day was filled with a mouthful of dust and ashes
blown through shivering hands
and thrown into the wheel of the house.
You told us that dying made life easier,
that it was like love
kept in the butt of a cigarette:
stale and imperfect
and the answer to your hunger.
The burden of waiting kept us awake
and laughter fell away like hopeless smoke
every time you took another breath.




Sharp

When she shivered and
shook in your arms, I began
my dreamy, formless
jig, my lazy jitterbug,
a watery girl-
goddess with a crooked face.

I am proof of your
lively language, double-tongued.
I am proof of your
golden cherry knife, your pale
and sickly sickle.
I am living proof of you.

When I emerge from
the black forest, you are gone.
If you could open
your eyes and turn back to me,
this is what you might
see:
slippery me, blowing
away, ripping out

sharp suns in the void:
my life twisted on a knife.




Abandoned

If he had taken me apart
like a tornado, like fingers digging in the ground,
and the roof had slanted and turned red,
and the windows rattled with the clamorous fog
and the sky darkened with a thousand breaking waves,
what a scene would be here before me now.
How clean is this house, how new and sharp.
Howling outside are the dogs, waiting for their share.




The Arms of His Mother

Small angel of mud and sunlight
makes her way over the mountain
in the long late afternoon.
She has come to escort the lost child
back to the arms of his forgotten mother.
She lifts the boy, rough like the rocks in his pockets,
and tucks him under her arm
like a stick of firewood.
In her other hand she carries a bucket of water,
at which the shriveled river casts its eyes in longing.
Make me a part of you, Mother.

Blinded by the dry light,
the boy does not recognize what he has lost.
Shadows fix themselves under his eyes
and he does not notice the slow paralysis of his face
until his mother asks him for a kiss.
His words are clipped and crumble fast.
I cannot kiss you, mother.

Some women scratch the dirt with their fingers
and bring up weeds and shattered stones.
When the first sign of water appears
breaking through the rock like small volcanoes
the other woman walks back across the mountain
trailing rainclouds and spilling sweat,
breaking through the thick air like an insistent wave.




All poems by Kate Pritchard, © 2001

Main page