October 8, 2009

So on a foreign shore where you came to understand
Joy--your arms full of gladness, it streamed, a fountain--did you,
Reluctantly but choosing it: get up and turn back home.

from "Self-Story as Spheres of Egyptian Industry" by Monica Ferrell

1.
On the foreign shore, rocks are not brutalized.
Seething beasts are quieted with the raising of a brow.
On every continent of skin, a pond of melted bone. You
scoop it up and press it to your eyes. A hurting flush.

2.
At a bus stop, a woman with a peacock feather in a zip lock bag
smiles for the very first time. It streams, a fountain.

3.
Cerulean tiles in a box waiting to be sealed to a church wall.
Sunlight, tinted ruby, glints off the right clasp of the tiler's overalls.
He touches the clasp without looking. The metal is warm.

4.
Turning away from sour breath
into a wind of candied orange.

5.
An Amish man, pant cuffs rolled, knee deep
in Caribbean blue, watching jellyfish smooth
through the sweet plain of water. His hat
makes a shadow on the water; the water
loves the shadow on her back.

6.
One day, the bathtub is filled with razored whiskers
as if a "Complete Works of Dickinson" had come unglued
and all the dashes fell there. And somewhere
in a wicker basket lined with polar bear fuzz
are all the letters, jumbled. So you
straighten your bow tie and dip your hand in.
The letters feel like peeled grapes. You take
enough to write gold and home
and bird and fable. You heart begins to ache
like hers but you are glad to be of use.
Blight, sound, wild, slant.

7.
A herd, galloping. One breaks ahead.
A league away, lit by a largess of sun
you can feel the hoof beats of that one, distinct
from the others. The sound enters
through your feet and fires higher, up
through legs, liver, lungs
until it has plugged into your heart, until
you go where this animal goes, Joy
and a herd of others at your heels.