You’ve come back
to the rooms of our house
where speech died
and a breathing stone filled our bed.
Tag: Poetry
It was getting hot that did it,
the way the sweat gathered at the back
of her neck and between her thighs,
how the sun stayed in the sky
day after day
so that only her tears would dry.
A female coyote, full-grown, was captured at a service station
on Division Street and taken to the Animal Care Facility on
Western Avenue.
A man up north keeps seven buffalo in an enclosure next to his
lumberyard. They gather in a woolly mass by the highway and
watch cars. Buffalo are also kept in a park at the local center
for atomic research.
In sadness, he said
leaning back in his chair,
we complement each other
very well
And smiled across the cluttered space
expectant
as if a question reposed there
The wind hurries a ragged
leaf across the lawn as rain begins
to fall. Outside, in your stairwell,
the small shriveled corpse of a frog lies
exposed. You lean
toward the window and feel some
tenderness.
In the glowing light of the setting sun, I pad through the grass
to the altar by the door.
The mouse is still warm. I drop it there and wait,
a supplicant in shadow.
The goddess screams when she steps outside.
This night is blessed.
Once on a hot, humid day
at the lake, a snake swam calmly by
the bank where I
was sweating in the sun. Suddenly
it came and moved
slowly, the water rippling and settling
in its wake. It held its head up, skimming
the surface, one eye
turned to where I stood. Silently
it slipped into the shadows
near the shore
and disappeared.
When I was a child, there was a bookshelf in our living room and on that shelf lived a copy of Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayam. I don’t remember when I first delved into this book. I know I was still in grade school and I do remember that my initial attraction was to the lovely, colorful illustrations that accompanied the text. It was a handsome book indeed — hardbound with its own slipcase, pages smooth to the touch, text printed in some kind of fancy font that was almost as pretty as the pictures. Continue reading “Book Tales: Poetry Remembered”
Karen Lee Kleis 