Issue 6:
Love
Janet I. Buck
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Sutures
All the sutures that you are
undoing packaged suffering.
It is striking, this love.
The manner in which it heals,
flowers, foams to
brush of passing grief.
Ripens in the worst of times,
leaves us pistons in an engine
trusting even leaking oil.
Our talks in messy morning hair
tender as azalea buds.
I see them on the counter's marble
even in the freezing months.
My missing leg is not unlike
living with imperfect poems
that break their stanzas
splitting pain in chicken wings;
not unlike napping in a broken chair,
knowing if you add much weight,
this health will lose the puzzle's shape.
Every time you look at me,
my body hits that rumble strip
and even in absentia,
I'm back where I belong,
keeping death at barking bay,
striking back at gusts of wind.
I find gray strands in teeth of combs.
Wonder if my wrinkles, sand,
and weakening will soil
fertile passion rites,
if the bloodshed of truths,
caked and crumbed,
will sicken you when we are old.
If flour sacks beneath my eyes
will make you look for firmer bread.
Ways you touch the growing creases
whisper merely otherwise.
~Janet I. Buck
Janet teaches writing and literature at the college level. Her poetry appears in hundreds of publications online and in print. Visit her website for information on her CDs, books, readings, and appearances. Email.
© 2001 by Janet I. Buck. All Rights Reserved.
© 2000-2002 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.
This page updated April 24, 2002.