90spoems/48lines

48 LINES FOR MY SISTER

I write a poem for my sister.
It is filled with wicker baby buggies
and pale tan shoes left lying in the wet grass.
It is a green bedroom dresser split in half,
a flat gray building in the Nevada sun,
a hollow room with cold ceramic tile,
the unwelcome chill from night glass.
It is paint-smeared window panes,
diagonal shadows across the wall,
a tree’s silhouette through vertical blinds,
It is burgundy rugs rolled up in the rain
and heavy incense in a summer room.

It is the A&P at the edge of town,
red convertibles with ragged tops
and pale blue cars missing gears,
our father’s socks and
fried chicken for Sunday supper.
It is late strawberries in green baskets,
rectangular cheese on a wooden board,
skewered scallops, garlic stuffed olives
and dusty lamp shades.
It is corn husks, lettuce leaves, sliced lemons
blue squares, red triangles,
elliptical bits of yellow.

It is a song which can’t be sung,
a tune too cumbrous to carry.
A crescendo of still dances,
a wedding waltz in a tight dress,
the broken spine of unread books.
It is the month of June, the key of G,
the number 21, it is 6:15 p.m.,
a jazz piano, an oboe’s shadow,
soiled cardboard, broken chalk,
empty coke bottles and broken glass.
It is music with a mean edge
and a clenched fist.

It is something which couldn’t happen but did,
rain sticks and bed pans,
tremoring hands grasping metal spoons,
the sting of not being able to wipe your own tears.
It is her spasmed hatred of the flesh,
her twisted spine, ribs rubbing against hips
her wish to leave this life.
A strange, still story, told, revised, and told again.
It cannot be scanned, punctuation is irrelevant.
It is a lower-case despair, silenced words,
mute and paralyzed speech,
it refuses to speak itself.

1991