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Collection Plates
The belly of a single drawer
shouldn't be sharp razors
against a fragile wrist, but it was.
I rifled through the evidence,
wishing your pulse would return.
If morals have music,
you were the flute.
There was a feast inside
this box of wood.
Confession kites of Kotex pads
made useless by that surgery
you minimized like crossing
trouble off a simple grocery list.
Silk bookmarks of a bible's cross,
gloves with holes in fingertips.
Cat hair thick as carpet samples
speaking of ways you fed
and groomed all orphaned souls.
A shot glass with a bourbon stain,
answers to the crisis cream
you never placed on tea trays
when you served us life in petits fours,
dressed plain cake and squares of bread
in elegant olives, tiny dots, pimento suns.
Corn pads for the hidden blisters
riding those who walk the hills.
All the black and white obits
of all your friends you buried in orchids
and lace, recalling the treasures they left.
A dented shoe that said
your ankles strained to stand.
I, the shepherd of truant leaves,
begging the tree's return.
Down Those Stairs
The basement was always locked,
locked tight as a nut in a bolt.
From here the magic grew,
a guess gone wild,
a brothel of abandoned hours.
Having nothing to say,
we pressed our ears to the walls
until a story, a ghost
dropped seeds for inquisitive eyes.
Sweating like glasses dripping in heat,
we parted the cobwebs,
their living room drapes
knew by instinct tied to time,
this place was a sunken ship
where chandeliers once burned
their tenuous suns.
A million crevices and caves,
eros of a question's lid,
underwear drawer of a house,
forbidden but calling our hands.
Bridges we found to the sea
piers of an ancient storm.
A dusty chair missing a leg,
someone's palsied, pilfered dream,
its cushion a tongue
that spoke with silence and tilt.
Too young to embrace satin dark,
accept an unanswering world
of strapless luggage,
boxes wet from a flood
like faces in an old folk's home,
a dirty handkerchief that knows
we listened for marching mice,
making the best of jetting
across their little roads.
Here the beams were odysseys
rod and staff reduced to twig.
We left the door of fear ajar
so tiny streaks of light could talk.
On the other side of the slab
colors were even and clean
drafts of red spaghetti sauce
promised us no poverty.
Grammy's Tools
The clothesline, Grammy quipped,
is a tree house string with a can
where women gather to swirl
a rumor in lukewarm tea.
Watch your back! she warned.
The birds have ears.
They'll carry a secret around the block.
They learn to sing from listening.
Grampa grinned from old cocoons
of hammocks on the shaded porch.
Aware she was his brick and tree,
his every grain of reasoning.
Amazed at how tortilla flesh
stood up to welcome mats of graves.
Amazed at how she passed the sun
from fingertip to fingertip
as if it were a flaming torch.
Those full-lipped white magnolia smiles
wove lasting garlands in my hands.
She spoke directly to a rose
as if its infant needed her.
Flowers learned to kneel in moisture,
then revolt again toward light.
Epiphany was just a page
of cotton shirts, blood removed,
sleeves relaxed like bygone ghosts.
Her stomach wiggled when she laughed --
bowls of tested gelatin.
An apron for her negligée,
the teeth of a washboard for silk
and a good book of dreams
to balance a menu of hail.
***First Published in Stirring, reprinted in Burning Word
Janet Buck is a three-time Pushcart Nominee and the author of four collections of poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Three Candles, Red River, Pierian Springs, Stirring, PoetryBay, Offcourse, The American Muse, and hundreds of journals world-wide. In 2002-2003 Buck's poetry is scheduled to appear in Zuzu's Petals Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Artemis, The Montserrat Review, Recursive Angel, The Foliate Oak, Southern Ocean Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Coelacanth, Cordite, CrossConnect, and The Oklahoma Review.
Janet Buck
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