ANNIE CONSIDERS HER REFLECTION
A prune, a gopher, a branch
stumpy and whorled, as plain
as wood. Invisible
as an elf-owl in daylight.
I am the legal limit somewhere.
Briefer than a minute,
almost finished as a sentence
but not a thought
once it’s begun.
Different from my face
still trying to learn my name.
HIDE & SEEK
I liked to play at hiding, too,
doesn't every child?
behind the couch with cookies &
cushions, pretending not
to breathe. In the backyard
burrowing under the chicken shed
like a two-fisted litter of puppies.
Or at night, curled under covers
so I couldn’t see the bedroom door,
the curtained windows,
the attic stair that still, at any
moment might open up like the gate
of a castle gaping: every child
has a right to dragons
in the bathtub drain.
But I never dreamed a father
humping down the hall
outside my room, no mother's
boyfriend with a blade.
No knuckled hands around
a windpipe, no burning babes
instead of stars. Now
as I watch the evening news,
I believe you
when you try to hide
the scars.
HER KITCHEN
For Mother, it was the center
of the house. At its center, the stove.
No, central was the breakfast nook
where morning found a window and pale
yellow enameled fold-up table
with the benches never folded up,
always ready for another meal.
And yet, the stove still held
the center, stovepipe up and wood-
fired oven the only winter heat.
Queen of this golden place,
Mother walked linoleum from sink
to Frigidaire and gutted chickens
under the faucet, her fingers
lost in innards fetching out
the purple-gray gizzard.
Thanksgiving eve, the same
applied to turkey, only bigger.
Then with turkey-muses wafting
together with wood-smoke,
Prohibition-aunt Sophia
walked in to catch my mother
mixing red cocktails (surely
the bloody Devil’s scarlet drink).
But Mother never meant anything
but the everyday turned fancy,
tomato juice in disguise.
LION LEAPS THE LAMB
To the eye of a shivering
beholder this morning,
surely Spring’s grown colder,
though by the calendar
March is older by a day:
hailstones pelt each
hapless boulder, the crocus
closed up in its pale
manilla folder.
Draw your wraps tighter
to the shoulder; sit here
by the woodstove’s flame
a-smolder, the candle
burning in its pewter
holder. Hold me
while Winter roars,
ever bolder.