L.L. Barkat - 2
French PaintingOn the wide space
where the windows overlook their blue squares of possibility. Let’s lean away together. You with your emerald hair. I with my gold—creating a single amber shadow. BywayI have never seen one,
he said, speaking of the mulberry tree. They are large, I told him. It is hard to reach the berries, though some branches weep down, and in the weeping your chance is granted. Dark, dark purple, I told him. Indigo maybe. The stain goes deep. It will ruin your clothes, I told him-- even as you can't stop yourself from taking more and more and more. ReplenishDo the shells still hear the sea,
though they are in pieces; how deep does the hearing of the sea enter into bone. Upon Learning that Fur Was Lost in Translation (and then learning that it wasn't, but too late for this sonnet)What did fine French Cinder elles wear besides
glass, what high class did they hope to flaunt to the ball, what gall muster towards, "I do"? Did they eat ash, secret, pretend inside, ache for privilege to take midnight steed ride to prince, to price, to prove flamed thoughts, undo braided tresses, guesses; did they have clues about the way ever-after collides in fives, in tens, muttered end lines tight shut, a fight to rise between odd hours ticking, tripping like a da-dum tapped short, slight cut into small rooms, I am's that jam, turning coated slippers towards spondee minutes spent as splintered moments on silk shorn string? Dear--
1
What if 2 What if the only way she could write again required a white cup 3 And the cup, would she pour herself into it? Or, rather, bring it to her lips. 4 What if 5 What if she held the cup very close, by its delicate white handle, and whispered into the hollow. 6 Something like-- I was five, and he said pick mulberries with me; I could show you the tree on which they weep and sway. And her mother held her chin and said, tell him no... it would spoil your hand-sewn dress. Solo at the Red Sun Buffet
Signs: sushi, grill, barb-q,
in green, orange neon. Trill and hum of fridges ovens, clack of friers. Red crustaceans stacked near fried rice, their eyes black and fixed, like the gaze of the leaning waitress; silent in faux pink silk, she follows every sip of my hot and sour, each bite into my slight, stale spring roll. |
After a Photograph of Dark FirsYou see how the trees are touching
how the gap in the sky is only white space how they are drawn to traverse, extend, find each other over time, and the road keeps going over the lip of what is seen. SetThis morning, in the sunset yellow dining room,
I held the Princeton to my lips, its handle soft between my thumb and tiny index finger, its gold rim imperceptible to taste, but circling nonetheless. Lazy, perhaps, or careless, I had seated the Princeton in the Profile saucer (also white, also fine bone). Still. When I held it close, and towards the light, my left hand joining the embrace, I thought to ask you this: Did you know, if you tilt the bone just right, you can see the fingers silhouetted, on the other side. UntitledRemind me, would you,
to buy more of the Peach Momotaro, with its images of waterfalls, lichen-toned terraces, waves of mountains imprinted with dots, little white flowers, and mist. When I drink it, and the steam enters me, I think of you and the water feels as if it’s pouring over the mountains. On Belleview AvenueSerpentine tree.
Japanese, I suspect, as in split maple, as in it takes a hundred years to snake these arms to such breadth; anyway, it seems everything must have been leading to this juncture-- droughts, floods, springs coming too late and winters too early, everything conspired towards this: snow, like white butterflies, laid over old curves, dead leaves, intersections, now ready to soft wing the empty night. The News, March 2011I found a button,
mother-of-pearl. It was sitting like the last star in a mangled universe, where dreams and all our brilliance were melting a hole into the earth and invisible dust kept falling, falling out and over day, night, history. I picked it up-- the button-- and thought of your smooth neck, curved as a shell and just as delicate; I thought of thin white cotton, a blouse to touch and a line of empty buttonholes. Then I knew that the sea must have taken it from you, this mother-of-pearl, this last star, and I wished for a silver needle and a virgin spool of silken white thread. Whispered
I should tell you
about my hands, small and experienced. The other night, when my youngest daughter said, as I tucked her into bed, Tell me something. Tell me anything, I turned off the light and whispered this: when I cut the beets tonight, the red water went all into the lines on my hands-- so many lines. ❦ |