T.A. Noonan

Advent: Transform Time of the Little Girl

I’m some sweet lolita
this morning

                        —or maybe my thighs
                            just squeezed these floral sheets to lace—

with hips so thick, you could shave
eight layers before hitting bone.

                                    *

Eight again: my father buys me a pink pinafore.

Three hours later, I slap a spoon from his hand.

His lighter scorches the little ruffles.

I change into black pants.

                                    *

Chart notes read, BMI 41.2: morbidly obese. Patient smokes
“at least a pack a day.” Have recommended cessation & diet regime.

I step out to call home. A nurse compliments my
shortcake purse. Line rings; I kick stones. Hitch jeans.

Flatten three grackles against a white sky.
How quickly I’ve puckered, become the doily that never levels.

Portrait of the Artist as Order Cetacea

I loved his hips—their bone-tangle tightness, the way they requested

charcoal. Hence my offer to draw him nude. We’d already promised

not to touch. I saved my hands for contour sketches, the softblack vine

dividing newsprint into sweeps of muscle. It’s easy to forget human shape,

to remember how his voice cracked, palm imprints fresh on my thigh,

lingering. All my defenses—water retention, insulation, genetics—useless.

My body’s give, sweet in theory. “Go home,” he said. If being a whale

is just a matter of composition or the fat pulse of a four-chambered heart,

I’ll rebuild myself fusiform. I can’t let him see me unable to find

the necessary exit leverage. So I hold my instruments tighter.

Aggressive Pesto Warfare
            for Allison Riddles

Nothing is worth hoarding but basil

outgrown its cruxes. I don’t remember

the last time I slept in a bed. Meanwhile,

my clippings settle themselves

against mint. Each pot invades

its neighbor. I don’t know their names:

creeper, ground cover, or simply not another

sleeping bag. My friends don’t know

each other. Sometimes they visit,

intro themselves over a miracle

-gro & pasta cocktail, leave

their deposits in the sink. I use

what’s left to set the home

inside my suitcase ablaze.

Observing the Professional Visitor

She says she hoards what earns its weight
                        in gas—a basil pot that flourishes
            despite its car-seat soil, old paperbacks,

the promise of a bed she doesn’t have
                        to make. Her business cards are blank.
            The men who take her in call her

“housesitter.” That name is more than
                        home. Some Romani—all her friends
            are spices. She needs owners

to thank her when their cats leave mice;
                        it shows that someone cares
            about her work. Forget the suitcase shape

beneath her sleeping bag. There’s a reason
                        why the trash is always at the curb,
            the flowers watered, pillows in their place.

Women’s Rugby, Law 22: Maul

It’s maul-like-a-bear.

Not mall-like-shopping.

But you’re yelling strip me! strip me!

That’s kind of like a mall.

Damn, what malls you go to?

I need to go there.

Anyway, you hear me shouting

strip me strip me strip me

you come running.

Hot girl saying that?

I’ll be fielding your shorts.

But seriously. Pink cleats?

You must be straight, honey.

T.A. Noonan's The Bone Folders won the 2007 Heartland Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Cracked Slab Books. She edits Flaming Giblet Press and the online journal grain short/grain long. In May 2009, she will receive her PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers.