But the rabbit's foot
yellow and birthing pollen,
with the hands of children.
Women, that is,
in December when ice forms on their teeth
full of sour and wristwatches,
belts graze their dinner plates.
Until wheels were invented
the rabbit's mouth was full of night
and hummed of disrespect,
toothpicking the dirt from our routine.
I bite your shoulder and touch your hair
under the whirl of the ceiling fan.
The collective cry of the maternity ward
crashes into the bumper of my solitude.
What do I see when I stare at concrete?
Polaroids and cheap dinners,
footprints criss-crossing the pasture
and out into tomorrow?
How can you rest?
How can I sleep tonight?
A tooth that I can't pull
from the left side of my mouth
Is that the rabbit or just a cavity?
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2 comments:
Some wonderful moments, here, Trista.
the rabbit's mouth was full of night
and hummed of disrespect,
I bite your shoulder and touch your hair
under the whirl of the ceiling fan.
What do I see when I stare at concrete?
What happens if you use some guiding imagery here. What if you placed at the top of the page: "The Witch Speaks of Luck"? I just saw the rabbit's foot and then thought of an unlikely speaker of a treatise on luck.
Trista,
I was just reading over your journal and found this really great calisthenics piece from last week. I don't know if this came from the translation exercise, but I guess that doesn't matter--I see some interesting things happening here. The piece is chock full of all this puzzling language and this almost Merwinesque dreamlike register. I especially dig the moments where the images of the rabbit (or foot) (or really just the natural world, ex. "footprints criss-crossing the pasture and out into tomorrow") are bordered against this sort of broken, ahem, human world? or civilization? (ex. "full of soured wristwatches/ belts graze dinner plates, concrete polaroid dinners").
So, I agree with Dr. Davidson's commentary about utilizing some sort of guiding image to try to "contain" all of this great ethereal language. I know because this is where I struggle. When I write I get so involved with the words themselves--mad scientist mode takes over, anything goes. I think the key is in the "housing" or in the containing of the thing with a guiding image or a maybe a constellation of these images.
I hope this makes sense. It's really cool things.
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