Issue 12
Fall 2002
James R Whitley
Although originally from New York, I currently live in Boston, Massachusetts. My work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in several journals including Coal City Review, HEArt, The Paumanok Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review and Xavier Review. My first book Immersion (Lotus Press, 2002) was selected by Lucille Clifton as the winner of the 2001 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award.
Aria
(for Janelle)
First she turns into wind,
then myth,
her body
a mere strained shadow
as it reaches the front door,
then fades into tomorrows.
The full moon like
a lost silver ball
hovering aimlessly
throughout that lengthy
first night without her.
And through the open door
and open windows:
the scent of dying freesia
wafting in,
its sweet threnody--
though slight, diminished--
still cleaving the air.
Sylph-like now,
she continues braiding
through darkened rooms--
rooms full of hard corners,
rooms filling with the somber
dust of months, of years.
You sit on the edge of
the old bed where you
caressed her soft hands
countless times,
where you often
intercepted a faithless
pillow slipping from
her weakening grip.
Trust me when I say
you will survive this,
despite the difficult music
always lurking
in the background--
this is just the music
of never-forgetting-her,
the music of the rest of your life.
Cast Away
After her companion
disappears, my abandoned
pet snake coils around
the molted skin her mate left
in the corner of the aquarium
she knows as home.
The slits of her fiery
red eyes are like focused
lasers shooting through
the glass walls, like
search beams scouring
the empty expanse of
my home, just in case
her unreliable scaly
partner should want to shed
his guilt and crawl
back to her, just in case
he returns to replace
the hollowness she sleeps
with every night.
And, despite the flagrant
absence filling the space
between her taut body and
respite, she still waits,
persists through every
weighty dawn and dusk
with a gaunt vigilance--
the stubborn muscularity
of her faith, like her wearied
armor, just another thing
to outgrow, something else
to be sloughed off in time.
Autumnal
Unseasonably cold.
And so soon. Too soon.
Especially after the mild spring,
the long torrid summer. Now:
last of the strawberry crops ruined.
And old widow Jackson next door
moaning that she won't be able to
hang her clothes outside anymore,
yelling for someone to run after
her last good pair of nylons blown
off the line, the worn stockings
pirouetting in the tragic wind
like a ghostly Giselle.
I shy away from the window so
she can't see that I'm home.
I want to help. Really I do.
But what good would I be now,
being, as I am,
just another animal
in desperate need of warmth?