Reverie Fair / Winter 2016 41
DOOR
A wreath raked with frost,
a door armed to repel the hoary eye
of winter
Why not? There’s the gas oven, like Plath
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,
hear
the birds of spring appear and
I am nearer the door. Do I
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.