Joan Baranow
energy may take
various forms...
but there is never any net gain or net loss...
If such could be: energy
never lost, let me
be the cool drop
your tongue finds
at midday
digging weeds
from our poor
hillside garden.
I'd hide
as a doorstop or
bottlecap,
crescent of soap
sudsing
your shaving dish.
Better yet, I'd feel
both your hands
holding me as you roll
out biscuit dough.
Let some particle
of my hair
latch on
to your ear,
or find me
nested
in the soft pocket
of your pants.
I may be the mouse
you curse,
strewing crackers
behind the stove,
an Alpine cloud
shadowing your view,
an ice cube
watering your drink.
I may be the last
pinch of salt
in your aunt's
glass cellar,
enough to savor
your famous stew.
And if you should
likewise be
rearranged,
no longer cinched
by these familiar cells,
let us rove
as beetles by the pond
(you know the one)
our antennae touching lightly
as we pass.
Joan Baranow
the trail map snapping in the sudden wind, and there,
like nothing you had imagined, nothing
in the pocket-sized postcards or the traveler's guides,
is the split continent, enormous and jagged,
a terrible incision, terribly gorgeous,
the late afternoon air pouring in
like liquid spilled from far fissures or glacial thaw.
Below, invisible, is the green wiry river
rubbing against rock, pursuing its prehistoric task.
You'd not expected such a vast accident,
your shock the same as seeing a live heart
beating, or the blood of a baby's birth.
Soon you'll descend, shouldering a pack
down switchback trails into the open wound,
where, at dawn, you crawl from your nylon tent
to watch the sun, that rusty, iron ball,
hurl itself over the broken earth.
David Watts, M.D.
in the dish, absence
where the brushstrokes
brushed, weeks
like that, then my wife brings
this new cake--Burma Shave,
new lather, old idea,
the way road signs
could be broken
into chains of small
crosses,
aphorisms that went down
in pieces,
a barber who
could make his tie wiggle,
eyes go wall-eyed--little tricks
derived from enough time
to entertain,
facials, boot black,
something of color
in a bottle that splashed
when you shook it,
orange blossom, rose
water, the men
in their shirts, their short
hair, characters
who don't know
the play has finished its run
but for this new cake
in my dish, its aroma, its texture,
its name against my skin.
David Watts, M.D.
The arm bends out, the vein
lies stretched and succulent,
transparent under the sheen
of alcohol. My fingers slide
the slippery skin, tracing
engorgement.
He says he's fine
but I see the cinch
of his muscles. So I tell him
I'm the best
and he eases,
slightly.
The needle glides
under the skin, beveled tip
in its slip along the vein
where I rest it
and let him relax. It waits
like a mosquito attached
by its sucker.
I press the tip
against the bulbous channel
and the wall bends, resisting
for an instant, then,
as if capitulating, gives way
and a column of blood
enters the tubing.
I have learned not to hesitate here,
not to let fears of my own
about anesthesia, about loss
of control, get in the way.
He will want to descend
quickly, not pausing
to feel each station of detachment.
I take the control he gives me
and bring him down.
David Watts, M.D.
While I Read Tu Fu
but something has coaxed the blossoms
into blossoming. Confidently
they cast their fragrance
in the February air. Duston
shares a toy, trills
a note to the chickadees
and seems ready to stay this age
forever. Light breeze.
The earth still cold. Sunlight flares
his hair like a Roman
plume. Wild-haired boy,
only later will we know this moment
from its other side,
scooped like a shell
from a beach now missing,
permanent and vanishing
in our hands.
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