The Fortieth Day
Now she called forth nights of a different kind of brilliance when the moon wrapped every thing with light—trumpeting yellow pumpkin blossoms, a water pump with a dropped handle resembling a rusty beard, an old chain saw depression at the top of a tree stump—things outside that scratched or crumbled spoke with flimsy or hoarse voices. A minute passed…then another. Old roses opened fearless and beautiful on this day of sadness. Since, flowers were no longer just flowers, they blurred and stretched into transparent curtains walking in the breeze of the raised storm window, walking, for those of us left behind.
Pussy Riot/Want/Don’t/Want
I thought you were a catch phrase for the not tonight, oh yes
tonight, but not two nights in a row!
of late middle age
how else to say it:
the thatched roofs are on fire
& the villagers have fled
except this woman
whom you left behind,
her skirt rising in flames,
wild heat,
a wreckage of K-Y and Oil of Olay
* * *
O graying fraying housebound hive,
you’re not my problem,
though I will admit
your spreading reflection in the hand held mirror
looks, this year,
don’t make me say it,
wiser –
if not for love or song,
* * *
Can a finger dip into honey
in late January?
Can red wine stream like blood down my legs?
This afternoon, huddled against the cutting winter wind
in front of Boston’s State House,
we protested
Putin must go!
Yanokovich is a cesspool!
while you, Prison punk prayer,
turn the world’s attention
to
holy
hooliganism!
I thought you were a catch phrase for the want-don’t want
of late middle age,
(oh pussy, what a riot, I had you all wrong)
