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Three Poems
by Jennifer Singleton Sassy My evergreens are sassy outside in their bold, glassy green clothes. They put to shame the rest of the courtyard. The others have to work so hard. I work hard and my self is not so sassy. I don’t swagger. Maybe I swagger in my full-skirt dress while I walk downtown with you. If plants could swagger, the big evergreen pine tree would. He reaches, the handsome devil, almost to the roof. He grins down at me, as I smoke my cigarettes hoping my dogs don’t get cancer. I’ve seen a lizard zig-zag vroom from its leaf to leaf And a toad take shelter underneath its widening girth. And I watch all this sitting on my sofa drinking coffee. The Stone Age Struck One Early Friday Morning/Building Reminisces For Jennifer Michael Hecht If the pyramids of Giza took so long to be built stone by stone Then I turned and took it away stone by stone. Was I the only one who said Hey wait! It’s not me. I do not carve my face into stone and yet, I do, with each passing word. The clutter is underneath the bed. It is not I, my stone I built. I looked out my window. To see the half-naked slaves building the pyramids of Giza. Then it was just me looking out of the window. I look out the window and I see leaves, not stone masons. In the dark they cannot see. But I can. The tornado weather lantern held high and the reflection of yellow, yellow, beyond the stone. I grew grayer. Drab. Until I didn’t recognize myself in the Cleopatra and the Tutankhamen. The vases filled with organs and it was not I, not mine. I am full of life. They were so impressed they carved me in and out of stone. I forgot what it was to bake bread, to bread stone ground corn. Primitive. I forgot to break Stone, to break pyramids. I forgot in our bedroom to break with hammers, swelter with nails and carving tools. He said, “You are as still as stone.” It is you, who knowing the dead, fearing it from the first hammer blow, know it is stone. Who else would come to bed with a tool? We were known to each other and knew not the break of a tomorrow. We forgot to respect the shifting of time. November The door creaks with the wind. Making clouded prophetic journeys from the cold, night dream. Haunted houses - wait, that’s over. It’s November. I look over my living room from the outside. It is perfect and warm. The dog perches on the sofa. He must be comfortable but ever on the lookout for spies. It is Russia here. Goodnight. Good night. Cold and mighty. Vast. The window glows yellow. The leaves blow against my door. Escaping inside. I sweep and sweep They keep on coming. Lenin is dead. The Old Order is no longer. It is not so with me. I hear the door. I see the dog. In the morning the Old Order is not so impressed with me. The sun shines, the door still creaks. But I hear the rooster. |
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