Monthly Archives: July 2011

I hear the hum of hallucinated neon
in the hospital; the caw of crows
in my vampire-ear.

Sympathy: the static rub
on my bare shoulder; the warm hands;
the cluck of tongues
that do not speak my language.

The oak tree in Florida–tall, strange,
gray-black against thunderheads.
The time-traveling bird-voice
in my ear, in the tree: “Watch out
for what has happened!”

I heard more than I saw–even the hum of neon
seemed more clear
to my gray-black eyes.

It has been fifteen years.

The banshee in the next bed could not take me;
somehow, I lost my mind
and lived.

07/25/11

In a past life, I might have been Nancy, but I fear
I am Sylvia.

We ghosts string together
cries for help–a jasmine tiara,
early-white and heavy,
never moon-innocent, as daisies.

Look at us; no, don’t.

What can I do
to catch your attention?
I fear the oven; I know
how she felt–the heat and hiss of gas;
the lull of faraway waves.

I worry about the cat. I open
and close the oven door,
but she is not trapped.

I am.

07/25/11

Aquatic Nocturne
Sylvia Plath

deep in liquid
turquoise slivers
of dilute light

quiver in thin streaks
of bright tinfoil
on mobile jet:

pale flounder
waver by
tilting silver:

in the shallows
agile minnows
flicker gilt:

grapeblue mussels
dilate lithe and
pliant valves:

dull lunar globes
of bulbous jellyfish
glow milkgreen:

eels twirl
in wily spirals
on elusive tails:

adroit lobsters
amble darkly olive
on shrewd claws:

down where sound
comes blunt and wan
like the bronze tone
of a sunken gong.