Reverie Fair Magazine Winter 2016 | Page 41

Reverie Fair / Winter 2016 41

DOOR

A wreath raked with frost,

a door armed to repel the hoary eye

of winter

The grit of loss still grinds against

my softer parts.

I’ve thought of dying

Why not? There’s the gas oven, like Plath

I could choose that path or pills like Teasdale

or Crane’s leap in the sea—

Out there a snowed-over hell

in me too, in lieu

of living

March: whitetail deer approach

on horn-tipped hooves,

feed on acorns by the porch

My blood pulses through clots of ice,

warms—

I fear leaving myself and

hear

the birds of spring appear and

I am nearer the door. Do I

design a new self—

one more inclined to—

but leaving me would grieve me

GIRL FINDING VOICE

Sometimes I sleep

near ghosts in petal-dried rooms

where I can’t sense my father’s rage.

I am like him, Mother says,

but I think not.

She mistakes form for content.

Give me a balloon,

lift me above the cornsilks.

Show me gypsy wagons

and wooden crosses leaning left.

Let me bite into boulders

and skyscraper stones.

I hear fireflies,

smell sweet alyssum on my tongue,

taste Longfellow’s Hesperus.

Let me dream and hear my little sister sing.

Crush the roses on my brother’s grave.

Each day forward is a broken link.