Priscilla Atkins

four poems

~*~

The Feet

 

Leibovitz’s series
of Sontag dead (chemo
bloated body, Gertrude Stein-
ish cropped hair)
gives me déjà-vu
of the first open coffin
I ever gazed into;
oh my god—that isn’t her!
(Mrs. Hesselshwerdt never
wore blue eye-shadow—
and those dyed curls, stitched
lips, painted nails splayed
across the chest; pure camp
before I knew the name for it.)
In these photographs, camera lens
has been seduced
by scarved, skirted, garish Truth.
The slinky, thick-maned intellectual
is disappeared behind a ravished
overlay.  I look for signs
but cannot find her. 
What stops me most
is the thing you never see
in the pallor of the parlor:
a pair of black-stockinged feet stuffed
in heels, dangling, macabre—
almost comical, like the Wicked
Witch of the East’s poking out;
that squat Kansas farmhouse.

 

~*~

The House Where Everyone Sleeps Well

 

Here, no one reads the poems of Sylvia Plath,
and, here, no one bends to scrub the cast iron

skillet encrusted with caramelized onions—elves,
up to their elbows in midnight suds, take care of that.

Here, no one worries about the jasmine sunlight fading
the oriental rug, or the front shutter blown loose telegraphing

its pornographic jokes to a sultry moon.
Here, the clock in each room chimes a different time, 

and the maps of the old world are tied with aqua ribbon,
then baked to a crisp in the pastry oven. 

Here, no one has to remember to feed the immortal
goldfish who burble irregular verbs in an eternally blue

world, and the cool squares of the calendar hanging
by the kitchen phone have never been marked on.

Here, mid-morning, folks stir teaspoons of brandy
into mugs of steaming tea, then roll out a summer carpet

to make way for afternoons of macaroons, and Parcheesi. 
Here, light bulbs last forever, and everyone

has loose change for new bars of Ivory soap,
for the ice-cream man.  Here, on alternate evenings

at 7:00 (bathroom time), a blind ventriloquist stops in
and performs Reiki on the people, and the pups;

at dusk, after she sweeps up the day’s little filings, 
failings, she curls up under the blue hydrangea to sleep.

 

 

~*~

Frequencies of Blue

 

I arrive at the silent city,
the noncommittal buildings lined
up, blank-faced friends in a bad dream
You are on your own now
But an inaudible, playerless violin
keeps me company,
omniscient master tugging taut
a slender blue, braided leash
The longest part:
the fifteen steps
from curb to house
Over the roofs, September sky pulsing
sapphire, and below, 
the slow-motion shapes,
faces-chests-arms-hands
gathered outside the gate
Even in the cool familiar
of your garden, the tight-curled,
round-shouldered silhouette of your mother
weaving among the hostas,
your partner’s green-and-black checked
sleeves, dark-rimmed spectacles,
lips shaping soft clouds of sound,
I wonder: Am I the only one
who hears the all-but-shattering
E string?
Weeks later, from behind,
above, somewhere over my
shoulder, it still registers—
silent vibrato pitched
to a single decibel,
the highest frequency of blue

 

~*~

 

Reading Colette

 

Léchée par la lune,
moon-licked,
I turn from the forest scent of sleep,
wake to sibilant mouthfuls,
liquid L, ŌŌ, S,
served up over my shoulder
in orbs of lemon, orange, tamarisk
edged in Saint-Tropez and Paris.
And I, overrunning, doubling back,
catch only a dusty fuzziness
of what whizzes past.
Until I dream myself a cat.
Then, confident, instinctual,
I leap from precipice to precipice,
land precisely at her feet,
where, nose-nuzzling le feu violet
of a butterfly’s wing,
I figure-eight her crépusculaire, over-
the-top volleys, lob them
back at the moon, like love.

~*~

 

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