Promise 

I skipped my wedding ring across the lake.
A fish, white as absence, devoured it.
Pale fishes tell tales to be set free
But if you catch her, cut her belly,
Thumb through her plummy insides
And find a rock hard promise,
Swallowed

 

October

 

There was once a lake where

guitars and frogs drowned out

insects and other horrors.

There were tilted umbrellas

and paper cups sweating wine.

During the day we balanced coins

on the tracks and waited

for the weight of coal trains

to wipe them clean.

We drifted on styrofoam rafts,

half submerged.

 

That time is over.

The trees are pregnant

and ready to drop.

Fat crickets thunk to be let in,

then find the cracks.

Damp air whistles through

unsheathed windows;

one pane in the attic is broken.

Twice there were bats. I knocked

the leather shuttlecocks

out with a racket.

 

I could have prepared better.

There are chores

as foreign to me as folklore:

draining gas from the mower's tank,

culling cat hair from filters,

shredding leaves into mulch.

My neighbor's houses

are matching bunkers

but the pets and I are starving

on mice, soup and memories

of summertime.

 

 

 

Date

 

Orphans on a first date

we venture out with fists

full of breadcrumbs.

We nibble at conversation

brittle as windowpanes

"Where did you go to college?"

"Do you like to read?"

Neither of us can decide

where to go after this.

 

We have in common

someone didn't want us.

The waiter is overworked

and won't clear the plates

or bring our check.

We are here until

we find a way home.

 

 

 

Back to Rapunzel

 

Her mother dreamt of cabbages

with heads as big as babies,

sweetened with egg yolks or soured with brine. 

 

The cravings were the worst on nights

when only she could hear

leaves blooming through the soil.

 

In the end, she stole from her neighbor's garden

and gorged until a girl was born

with bad karma and hair like wild hemp.

 

The child grew up fast and distant,

locked herself in a tower

imagining witches and conspiracies.

 

There is an energy to waiting

that causes hands to puppet shadows

or arrange hair. Her hands moved at night.

 

When a knock came at the window

she threw out the new braid and beckoned

and, for awhile, the tower was a chimney.

 

Each day he did not return

she cut a foot of hair until

she was framed with a wreck of fringe.

 

She imagined him coming back

crying blindness or no ladder.

She fed herself on no, but

 

at night she could hear new growth

like follicles or vines

pushing their way out.

 

 

 

Spinning

 

I understand haymaking-

scything through fields,

bundling the dead into nuggets-

but I can't spin straw into gold.

 

It's expected here.

Each time the door opens I'm asked

if I've filled each stalk with sunshine.

 

A spindle is a stubborn thing.

When a stranger offers repair,

I hesitate at the cost

and he stomps himself to dust.

 

This place is dark as basements.

I can smell morning

and the job isn't done.

 

 

 

 

 

The End

 

I was the cinder girl.
My prince has come and gone.
The worst year is over.

I have sifted the ashes into dust
good for scattering in sunbeams
to glitter then fall gray,
also for baking into tea cakes
digestible only with wine.

This is beyond the end.
The house is empty except for cats,
the alarm is armed.
I am waiting for the last
magic to settle into silt.

 

 

Copyright  Michelle Miller 2002