Ladies and gentlemen, Poetry Issues #6 is out:

 

 

 

The Screw

 

It was waiting for me, on the kitchen table

full of suggestion and gleam. It wanted

to be pressed hard on the wooden floor.

Its whole body begged to be twisted.

 

My moves were decisive. My expression

said it all, in a low grunt of womanly power.

Dominant in nature, I didn’t mind the sweat:

It validated my consistent, punctual effort.

 

I thought we were aligned – reciprocally

understood. But in a moment’s glimpse

it snapped, and rolled under the low couch.

Now, I have to find myself another screw.

 

 

The World Scaled Down

 

When I was fifteen, we lived on a lane

of big fir trees and low, curtained windows.

The lonely man on the corner once bought

a little cactus he placed on the mantel.

Passing by for school I waived at it, as

some children will befriend anything.

Within a few weeks I saw it wrinkle

and shrink in monumental misery.

I felt the impulse to knock on his door

but still feared the myths plaguing people.

“What kind of person let’s a cactus die

of drought?” I asked my mom distressed one day.

“The kind of person that also kicks his blind dog”

she said and turned to bake food casually.

 

 

Bread

 

In a way, it was a rite of passage

to qualified motherhood:

The fantasy of the steaming

fresh-baked bread and

the lemony glove next

to a matching apron.

And before that, the satisfaction

of the kneading hand

in slow motion, suspending

particles of flour pushed away

by the fluffy dough explosion.

 

 

Terza Rima for the Unhappily Married

 

You think that war is the ultimate carnage

that wakes in a man the blood-thirsty beast.

Wait ‘til you’ve seen the perfect marriage.

 

Wearing white in their coming-of-age feast

lies choose almond cake and harpsichord tunes

that you dance to, when your better half insists.

 

Cagey comfort turns you numb and immune

to the slow death of your once-flaming lust.

Soon you learn to mask silent rage with croons.

 

Absurdities bullet out of your mouth just as

last-minute, habitual lovers appear alluring

under the flattering light of a compulsive past.

 

To the downward spiral there is no ending

until you cry “revenge” and make for the landing.

 

 

The Hysteria of Fräulein von R.

 

He would press my head’s cross with his thumb

and instruct me to remember. He put on

such a show

with the pretext of conjuring up

forgotten memories. Once,

he turned me into a puppet

with his induced somnambulism

just to prove an argument.

 

He was so full of himself.

 

To get rid of him, I pretended

the paresthesia in my legs had left me.

He was contented, proclaimed me cured

and freed me of his presence.

 

But on some quiet nights the pain returns

out of the blue, as strong as ever.

 

 

 

 

[If you want to learn more about Poetry Issues, check the press release.]