Janet Aalfs
QueerWhen 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 |
Channeled WhelkWithin 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
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