altar of the marsh

composed,

save for his wild hair,

he leans

forward and back,

words rolling,

dredging up, somewhat shyly,

his recent regrets, while I,

unsure, in my southern summer dress,

traced with scarlet, curl

into the cushions,

wide awake and fluttering

child's smile electric smile smeared smile

sweet night, rushed and running,

full steam

through false faints and feigns of feeling

-- if not,

every move of unbalanced blood,

unconscious

flush, drags

down the horizon

a storm,

our own

long foreseen

desertion

Nusch Eluard

Scared of both loss and affection

Dangerous

Your open eyes and honest confessions




My soul sighs against your teeth, your all-American smile.

My Last Lieutenant

Empty cage

from where you never—

came and cleaned me out

Dry riverbed bereft

Hot sand could turn your eyes to glass

No more

two mountain lakes

Like me

lovers of the sky

Life below

the Mason Dixon line,

a cat called Moonshine,

time

slowed down,

sultry

summer of weeping

willow trees,

bores and bees (Can you

see the difference? Twice

bitten now

shy)

Once,

back in the woods,

grandfather and granddaughter

drawing dreams,

rusting

metal tractor parts,

broken

twigs dipped in water,

then,

watch,

castles ponies princes dragons ladies

disappear

into the hot heavy air

I gave it up for a song

A gesture towards blood

He lied for me

I lay like a girl in a film

Calm in the morning light

Moon skin and night between my thighs

Then,

Slinking around four days in his sweater

Flying down hills over rivers

Rhythm and open eyes

My mind full of what I’d gained

He made me tea to make up

For not meeting my gaze

Sunday planes and silence

Later,

Egrets circled my head

Messengers over the marsh

I still remember the feel of the drums

Thoughts straight lines and flesh

Connected

A normal girl

Camille Claudel

Tornado eyes. I’d like to see the birds hanging motionless in the sky. Empty cage of a heart.

"You didn't have to attract desire. Either it was in the woman who aroused it or it didn't exist. Either it was there at first glance or else it had never been. It was instant knowledge of sexual relationship or it was nothing. That too I knew before I experienced it."

Marguerite Duras, The Lover

Remedios Varo

"She sat there ...

Slightly filthy with erotic mystery ...

I saw

The dreamer in her

Had fallen in love with me and she did not know it."

Ted Hughes

Why fight it, when you can just curl up inside my soft, black heart?

Shapes of ladders, rope, moving under red lights, dancing constellations. Your demure hands, flushed cheeks, burn my skin clean off.

“Everywhere I go, I see things as modern art.”

The proof is in the pudding, captured second-hand smile, my turned head, dark hair, a blot on your morality.

“Please, I much prefer tart or strumpet.”

Your crazed confessions, libido logic. I’m only a nighttime librarian now-a-days, anyway.

Let it sit back and simmer. Then, burn it clean off.

Your little red lips,

Doe eyed recovery

Slinking

Away the city night

The South --

There is a sort of way it digs into you

Creeping ivy

Crawling all through your insides

I don’t know if it makes you broken

Or beautiful

Wind outside, whistling like a teakettle, discovering my obsessions.

Melusina After Tea



False memories make a mockery of the citadel

Dreams vibrating through bone like breath

When the air is still, absent

My husband –

I lay back in my bath

Selene split in half and lidded constellations

I dissolve and shall not remember

The ravens return on Saturdays

Flocking round my vanity

Stealing my long hair for their nests

High in trees bereft of name

A Sappho Fragment

"... frequently

... for those

I treat well are the ones who most of all

... harm me

... crazy

...

you, I want

... to suffer

... in myself I am

aware of this"


[translated by Anne Carson; ellipses suggest missing text]

Jacqueline Lamba