Grammar Shy

They were in the produce section, picking mushrooms.
She was younger than him–maybe by twenty years–and I thought of them as
father and daughter
until I followed them to the aisle with red wine.
The way she stood close behind him, offset, staring at labels
gave her solemn dedication to his largess away
and I was certain he had cracked open a clam over in seafood,
then she emerged fully clothed with eyes so sparkled and empty
they closed the symbolic circle of nakedness.

She didn’t seem to mind the cocktail sauce, to know what it was for
but even the second-rate night-clerk who hardly speaks English
could call the bluff.
He asked for ID for the wine and was surprised that her driver’s license didn’t smell like the sea; still–
there was something off about how she asked for paper bags
while the man trailed away.
He was going to devour her. She paid for the butter, sauces, lemons, and
complimentary wine without flinching.
I almost thought she was accustomed, new shells blooming her all the time.

I followed them to their car,
an opulent black affair that he pressed her gentle bones against to kiss her.
She stood with one hand on the cart, her head tilted like she was listening to
something underground while he loaded the groceries into the trunk.
When he finished she pushed the cart to the corral, soft-stepping
and she caught me staring, defenseless, fascinated by her vacancy
until I watched something stir deep in the tidepool that said “leave us alone.”
I retreated hastily, embarrassed, knowing that the next time I bought a clam…

(c) Dorothy J Burk 2008

What is her metric weight,
the dimensions of her hand,
the length of it
across your naked chest?

What is the density of her pelvic bone,
how much is the pressure, the force
hers is exerting on yours
and what is the way to measure
the gap between you?

Put down the numbers,
conversions, divisions
she does not understand
and count the hairs on her head,
the equations of you she has done
already.

(c) 2008 Dorothy J. Burk

In the low rushes where the grouse was caught
it has a name they do not know that speaks
to the sage and the juniper berries,
to the breeze and the mother of the wind;
un nom de guerre to suppress the sort of attention
that has gotten him taken.

To think that a whole long parade of breaths,
a seamless string of organic interactions has totally ceased
in these few moments is absolutely absurd
but it is well known in these parts
that invested effort can come to nothing
in the long-shot moment of fate.

In the low rushes where the grouse was caught
silence prevails in the evenings where once
names were chittered in the foliage with affection
between this and that mortal little bird;
someday things will swing back to the unspoken language
of the sage and juniper berries, of the breeze and mother of the wind.

(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

One night,
after the shadows have fallen,
we will sit with our hands in our laps
and laugh at this small tragedy;
when we kiss,
the world will be still for a moment
and our sorrows will ride into the horizon
like Clint Eastwood.

Until that night:
You be my Lightfoot,
I will be your Thunderbolt,
and we will ride into the sunset
anyhow.

(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

I remember riding your indigo
to the train station, that you
tasted like sea-salt on fresh snow
between my teeth and that you manuevered
the publicity so well no one knew
what you were about.

I must have been magenta, I must have
tasted like curry and gin
with my hands wedged into the folds
of the cushions; keeping company with strangers
for a half-smile and whisky.

I devoured my discomfort
with corned-beef hash. I spooned you from an egg cup
against my eager tongue and you were too wet
but I kept going and your shell gave you up
to my longing.

I got pinned against the long grey of the platform
getting off the train and you let me go
like that; just like that, right there and the smoke
as it lifted from the stack to the sky
was frozen in suggestion and it watched you depart
with practiced omniscience.

And I laid on the platform,
and I stared at the stars.

 (c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

We weren’t around in 1916
for our uprising. we barely own
the recollection of what it must have felt like
to be our own depraved race
for the first time.
for some of us still
there is nothing to remember
but brotherly betrayal;
priorities and politics
& cardinal directions.

I try not to think about it very much,
how my features betray my geography,
lacking independence, and clime theory,
a long history of rickets
and vitamin deficiency.

I try not to think of how badly
you want me to be dull;
how you’d like me to betray my genealogy
and play nice:

the passion for history waning,
you have forgotten wars are always over meaning, symbol,
efficiency, linguistics,
interpretation and

my people, our people
die from rotten potatoes and fight,
dream of utopias, banshees,
spirits, energy,
physics

and have licked wounds for hundred of years
that have never healed.

(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

it was silly of me to suppose
time could pass in any way
but the way it has and I am
a bit disappointed that I
could not bend space like I thought
but I’ll get over it eventually.

I was banking on that mustard-seed faith,
I was banking on the power of conviction
to make it my way.

I guess I didn’t want to have super-powers anyway,
I just wanted to find a wormhole
to fall through momentarily;
here is a rabbit’s hole, you say
here is a looking glass.

I guess the approximate is good enough,
it was silly of me to suppose
it would be any other way
than the way it has always been
and I am a bit disappointed that I could not bend the fabric of the universe,
but I’ll get over it.

(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk