Post by LynnDoiron on Jun 11, 2008 16:54:20 GMT -5
Jewell’s feet are pored like a gecko’s are suctioned
to hold impossible poses among the spoons
and hydrangeas,
on tabletops at tea: anytime really.
A very small human, the size of a moth,
born into this world without wings
(as humans are these days), Jewell is
a throw-back to an era when
angels inhabited Earth,
all Earth.
Then, to be born without wings was
hidden;
infants were: 1.) placed in a closet
and fed through a keyhole, or 2.) left
in the woods
or fields
or on desolate shores
for blue crabs or coyotes.
Each action of unkindness diminished the herds of angels.
They could not, it seemed, help themselves
(unkindness was a way of life)
and perished
as surely as lemmings.
Jewell steadies herself on a slice of Gerbera orange daisy,
near the stamen.
Brown as a red bean and just as naked,
naked, too, in her envy
of all winged beings, she is tired
unto death
of clinging to blossoms.
This one bends under her weight
(a thimbleful of spider’s net, if that)
and when the scrub jay takes her by beak at her waist,
swallows whole her legs,
pauses,
chokes
past her shoulder blades, he belches
free an innocent batch of white down:
wing remnants of unkind worlds
much like this.
to hold impossible poses among the spoons
and hydrangeas,
on tabletops at tea: anytime really.
A very small human, the size of a moth,
born into this world without wings
(as humans are these days), Jewell is
a throw-back to an era when
angels inhabited Earth,
all Earth.
Then, to be born without wings was
hidden;
infants were: 1.) placed in a closet
and fed through a keyhole, or 2.) left
in the woods
or fields
or on desolate shores
for blue crabs or coyotes.
Each action of unkindness diminished the herds of angels.
They could not, it seemed, help themselves
(unkindness was a way of life)
and perished
as surely as lemmings.
Jewell steadies herself on a slice of Gerbera orange daisy,
near the stamen.
Brown as a red bean and just as naked,
naked, too, in her envy
of all winged beings, she is tired
unto death
of clinging to blossoms.
This one bends under her weight
(a thimbleful of spider’s net, if that)
and when the scrub jay takes her by beak at her waist,
swallows whole her legs,
pauses,
chokes
past her shoulder blades, he belches
free an innocent batch of white down:
wing remnants of unkind worlds
much like this.
