Issue 11
Sigh
Janet I. Buck
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Up Siskiyou Cemetery Hill
It's Mother's Day -- too late
for angels in the snow,
but Sanskrit fog still rules the road.
I write another vacant piece,
arrange the myth, walk the hill
to honor what I wish we'd been:
a firm Pieta kept in stone,
suckled by its tenderness --
not caskets graced with weeping eyes,
their owl marbles questioning
the sanity of going back.
There might have been a dance, a waltz
of all left feet and arguments.
Trees don't talk, but I must ask.
The void we are is haunting me.
Should sorrow be a grape to squeeze?
Would you say I'm making vinegar of wine
by forcing Father to recall
your wedding veil in Irish lace,
red lipstick on the tattered collars
hidden from this reckoning.
Would you say -- just
toss the acrid salt of death
across a tilted shoulder blade.
Don't take the rivers of your tears,
plan to make a desert green,
when sand is all you rifle through.
I dig up roots and shake the strings.
Like mayday art, the wind
sighs hard above your grave.
I, a lost pedestrian with ice cold hands
searching the vanishing glove.
~Janet I. Buck
Janet I. Buck is a five-time Pushcart Nominee and the author of four
collections of poetry. In 2002-2003, her work is scheduled to appear in
CrossConnect, Artemis, Offcourse, Zuzu's Petals Quarterly, and dozens
of journals worldwide. Email.
© 2003 by Janet I. Buck. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2003 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.