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Agincourt Sundown |
God’s too big to bicker with over my runny
hose, shred skirt, and scanty girth—as if I’m
reprieved. God taught my greed
good last time. My golden rosary snapped
like sugar peas & flung
across clapboard floors. Nobody
can follow nobody
down. If we could each shine
but one song, HIS would stagger
woolen-eyed through patchy gardens
snatching beloveds
into a limpid bouquet…
Sky-lite Chapel’s magpie keeps twitting
at my window. ON MY FATHER’S SOUL,
HE KNOWS ME, that lavender bird stretches his shadow
over my tea like smoke: his O-ring gaze… snakes me
as if he spies MY HEART
clad in a seersucker suit tipping
mango martinis. Paradise
ain’t nothing’ but a lonely soul's shipwreck he used to say,
as if he’d been there…
when my man gave-‘way, I heard soiled blow flies buzzin’
in his lungs— like a wheezy accordion. Preacher told me
to lift my prayers
toward heaven but my ears
stunned-stuck
to the rise & lapse of his lovely chest.
My rapture = his breath
air… a distant cord
like the last angel scrambling
over a scattered halo.
copyright 2005
Maureen
Alsop |
