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Some Poems and Prose
After That, The Rest Is Truth
Case-and-Switch Statements
User's Manual in Middle Age
Head Lines
I Tell You a Bedtime Story
Triptych: Congregation for Cause
We're of an Age Now
Evolution, Propagation, and Defense
The Witch and Civil Religion
The Pantoum Says Everything Twice
How to bone a duck:
The Summer Between Two Years
Upon Seeing Photos of My Ex-Lover's Cooking-Related Injury
I Would Have Called, But You Might Have Me Made as Drunk
Some Women Feel Empowered by Taking an Active Role
How to Write in a Time of Resistance
Five Stories
On the Occasion of My Sleeping with Your Boyfriend
(includes sound file)
The Same Sad as Me
(includes sound file)
Case-and-Switch Statements
User's Manual in Middle Age
Head Lines
I Tell You a Bedtime Story
Triptych: Congregation for Cause
We're of an Age Now
Evolution, Propagation, and Defense
The Witch and Civil Religion
The Pantoum Says Everything Twice
How to bone a duck:
The Summer Between Two Years
Upon Seeing Photos of My Ex-Lover's Cooking-Related Injury
I Would Have Called, But You Might Have Me Made as Drunk
Some Women Feel Empowered by Taking an Active Role
How to Write in a Time of Resistance
Five Stories
On the Occasion of My Sleeping with Your Boyfriend
(includes sound file)
The Same Sad as Me
(includes sound file)
Note That They Cannot Live Happily
When the hour for departure drew near the old mother went to her bedroom, and taking a small knife she cut her fingers till they bled; then she held a white rag under them, and letting three drops of blood fall into it, she gave it to her daughter, and said: “Dear child, take great care of this rag: it may be of use to you on the journey.”
-- The Goose Girl, from the Brothers Grimm
I.
Leave me for a husband,
daughter, my
flesh-doll. I picture
you waiting by
a new window. But take
me with you
against your breast,
hidden.
You'll still see me --
leaning down to drink.
I am duck bones
boiled in milk
the scent of roast meat
on the wind
the sound of knives
through celery.
II.
Dear Mother: Today your blood floated down the river.
A pity; the handkerchief was soft.
Still en route to castle. Weather fine and warm.
III.
Straight ahead. Philosophy texts in my saddlebags
may disagree, but I say it's the best way: with blinders,
to my left could be anything. Apple trees. Sorcerers. Home.
Sun up, walk. Sun high, walk. Sun down. Kneel down.
Nothing changes, but everything might. I could find myself
on a bluff. I could kick loose stones. I could lose this load.
But carrying's just carrying. We stop. I listen. We start;
someone runs off behind me, moccasins, scuffing. A bride
gone? It doesn't matter, not to me. Who could tell from shifting weight:
princess? Lady’s-maid?
copyright Split Oak Press/Jaime Warburton, 2009
