THE LOVE IS NOT OLD only the letters;
I take them to the porch to read
Your lightning bug needs more light before they crack,
Make the brilliant move of getting the words together;
Churchilian eloquence
Brush up against the grindstone of life
Get pulled.
Maneuver victory.
He took the lectern, the great historian
And for an hour I stopped worrying about my soul
While light hit the dusky classroom like a hatch of fireflies.
WE FOLD ONE MORE EVENING away on a shelf.
Linen, Lamb.
Lit by moon. If not born here, drawn here. Steam still puffing out of the engine.
Or cozy up. Nava, a reckless romantic plunge.
Continuing our journey across the Cotswolds; trench coat to chin, ciggie-lighting.
Jaw-dropping. Liven up the yeast, bread-making.
Honey-colored stone,
Instead of IV’s. top marks. you are a grasshopper reading. Carrot-top.
Rembrandt’s son. Leggy, years nine.
Rule out aphrodisiacs
Home over hospital our secret ceremony is unfolded with the sachet in the pillow, beloved, my Lesbian, we fold in.
Having my hair cut
The bridle-like curls twirl, his pointy hooves are shoe-polish black.
Ebony against ivory air. Taste it. Want not waste. . .Like barber shop poles
But
Above all aren’t I a girl
No pearl-ping rouge
But having learnt young
You have to pinch your cheeks
To a rouge if you want to get married. Just as you have to rock till you get the feeling if you want love’s first shock and bruise.
Sizing & resizing the page to the screen
--letters slip off, I draw them in again
Lithe ponies
Who balk at the rein.
As I do, temperament & tenderness
Year five
On this island, my bed, sifting fairy-tale dust thru my fingers.
Surrounded by waves of vellum: language-legs tremble:
I harness lost-letter leather till tautened, it finds
The one who got away: the fine poem, the best one.
I take a broom out the back door
It snows. I sweep snow.
I am not a doll.
I keep the darkness away
While a little motor goes down the dirt road
And ever thing riles my lover.
Illness distorts;
convex lens
Becoming concave. Forgiveness
The loss; it is a pain in the left rib. I am a bird, not a child. Was once, now Bubula asks why I went in iron leg braces all those years, until the door opened on eternity, a falcon, I flew home on my Jesse; nothing now riled. My angels were good to me.
Note: Poetry by Lynn Strongin; Artwork by Marguerite Strongin.