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Janet Aalfs


Queer

When my mother at the table noted
the roast tasted queer,
I watched my father stare
as if to freeze the air
that sizzled like spit
on an iron skillet
          and disappeared.
No one saw me
          gone.
Every nerve and current spoke
          invisibly true.
Like the slap he had meant
to stop a boy
from kissing me, or worse,
the girl he did not see, silent
lips to mine.
I trusted every feeling.
          My ground.
          My spine.
And learned the meaning
of mercy then – love
blessed that word my choking
parents swallowed to live.
          And pierced my heart.
          And pushed me out.
​

Thoughts

1.

And then we wait
And then everything comes to us
From the wind in our mouths for it has traveled
Through leaves and branches of the memory tree
Whose roots began before we began
As thoughts blew backwards to find

In the rubble of words
Swallows swoop
Nothing's a dance more calm
How everything flows to heal
The kindness of so much waiting is
As truth from seablue wings


2.

Thoughts that have become other thoughts
Not even the clouds can reach
Beginning as rain then hail
Without regard for sense
This trail of sugar for the ants
From places I've never heard of
Glistens across the table
As if I'd planned to go

3.

That's where a thought begins
In the middle of a phrase
At the bottom of my cup

Women at the Helm

Doves rise over harbor waves as sun
ignites the dance. Quill and bone, wind
and blood, hearts lost cradled undersea

the chant alive: nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Anguish can't defeat us.
From desert forest mountain shore

through whip and gasp, rape and ash,
the lotus a bright bird soars
to interrupt the choking, to revive

the tree of life, leaf-light dreams
in children's eyes, pain their milk-teeth
grind dispersed. Wings and clouds.

We sing, though we cannot mend.
We dance, to honor death.
We witness, aligned,

to break the raging silence,
to weave this moment's breath
more fiercely, more kind.

Metaphysics of Doubt

A porcupine sends sleep ahead
whenever it doubts
that peace awaits
at home in the stone
walls and ferns the river
touches to soothe.

Sleep draws the poison out
like a snake from a bottle
of alcohol. Like tea from boiled
potato peels when drunk
dissolves the gall. Rocks fall
asleep to become

a fleet of dragonflies,
humming crystal wings,
sounds your eyelids crave.
Such heavy lightness wakes
reflections in the river,
clouds that come and go.


Smoke

a dingy wood
stove slouched
at the center
of a bare one-
room schoolhouse
flames swallowed logs
smoke snuck
through cracks to touch
Coal River Mountain
ridges stitched in frost
a woman robed with sun
this is how my sister
learned to read the moral
from snide rebuke to rule
of thumb rod unspared
the master struck
to mine the hills
and valleys of her
riches this is how
bone to bench
stuck in ice
beneath her feet the moon
I vowed to write
a book of revelations
as full of light
as any heart

*Italics: Revelations 12

Picture

Go to page 2 of Janet Aalf's poetry 
​Janet Aalf's profile

Channeled Whelk

Within the spine
     another spine, memory
         a ribbon of eggs. Venus necklace

strung in silence. Countless
     perfect specks become
         large pear-shaped bodies

of turreted whorls.
     Buffy blue-gray sculpture,
         such fine revolving lines,

within memory, another spine
     small as a grain of sand begins
         the wordless form that ends

hurled from surf to shore.
     Empty then, held to an ear
          like a mirror the ocean sings.

Wind, heartbeat, tidal
     pulse, base to crown
          at the suture, a broad and deep

channel spells a winding
     terrace of dreams. Twisted columellas
          cut into elongate beads:

wampum, each tongue-touched
     curve, each mother-word forgotten here
          yet lost, yet found.
​

Original Nassoon

Young men harmonize
Perfidia at the station.
Train cars empty, lights

dim, an old man
humming in a wheelchair
could have been my father,

original Nassoon, singing
in the smoke of wartime
as the world kept swinging

on a rope of tunes
like one of those bath soaps
that smells like a lily, golden

strand at the center
woven through every cell,
a common note

you'll find if you listen closer
than a dream. Heart's refrain a spiral
stretched like a strand of pearls

reaches from earth
to the cobalt moon forever
in a glance, my father's voice

a gorgeous bloom among all
the voices lit
as the wheels of iron turn

back to the first
song we learn
in silence darker than blood.

One Spark

the silence from within

the generator humming

the radio voice the ringside cheers



one spark defies the herd

the murderous circuit

sputters then



one breath that dares

the bolt to strike

the shadow-hand of white



supremacy the electric chair

its killing juice to quit

one surge that flips



the breaker frees

the light the many share

incites the courage to step



to soothe the wounded ground

to unknot the twisted tongue

to right the unspeakable wrong



one spark ignites

the silence from within

where truth begins

Bolder

it's where the music
comes from I am
living as another
mountain blasted
no one knows
how many
more to go

children shattered
women torn
trapped
men below
airline pilots steer
to avoid
the ashen craters

thrumming deeper
word on fire
it's where
the music finds me
bolder
living as this
other
mountain thrives
you cannot kill
her roots of ironweed
her redbird's trill

​
Picture
Go to page 2 of Janet Aalfs' poetry.

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