When She Had Too Much to Drink at the Fall Party She thought about her teacher's tomatoes and how he had carried the seeds from Rome, he said, all the way home in his front pocket, where the packet was sure to be too warm. Party guests were served fried green tomatoes, the last of the season. He saved some seeds, he said, for next spring. She proposed a toast: To tomatoes--to all that red and green fruit of the vine, work of his hands, from Rome, in Arkansas. God, bless 'em. Every one. . . She grew as sentimental as her poems. When she began to slur, he helped her home. He spoke of how he'd staked tomatoes out in Arkansas--how he had watched them grow as he tended them and worked on his tan. His voice held seasoned hints of anguish, though, when he described how soon fair skin could burn. She couldnŐt speak, although it was her turn, while plump, perfectly round, red tomatoes mingled, like guests, with his more lofty thoughts of sounds in trees, silence and caesuras, his wife, and those large, erect garden rocks.Return to Geraldine Cannon's Homepage
The First Star Out
Sometimes, I think my only existence is yours. When you say you hear a whisper of stars, I see them--I hear them in your voice. And when I think of you in the distance, far from the reach of my call, I feel fear, knowing we are one body--a mass of flesh, our arms reaching for stars. We begin to hear them speak in different tones, with different meanings. How can they pull us apart when it took years for us to become so nearly together? I try to dismiss these thoughts when night comes. In the starlight I feel free enough with the first star out to make a gleaming wish. When the other stars appear in brilliance through night clouds, I'd have to try to hear them whisper. How lovely that they're loud.
In the Absence of Light (for Carl Sagan) it makes sense that there are no colors, no banded spectrum to illustrate the elemental nature of all matter; it makes sense that we can know every thing and no thing so well by calculation, and by observation of such intricate repetition; it makes sense that our ancestors were afraid of the dark, hungry mouth-- night, a gaping black hole taking faith, a fierce abandonment of the known; it makes sense that we still seek the billions and billions of answers to questions expanding relatively with the speed of brilliant thoughts. . .
Whisper Will With her bed so near the window she can hear crickets hit the screen and click into position wings and knees, moist music, filtered rhythms in cool air. She pulls the thin sheet to her waist, watching water drops gleam into one square after another, reaching the sill. Sleep falls into waking like the water drops, like night into day. Soon the sun will be over the ridge; a night hawk dips above the damp ravine. Haunting sound, a Whip-poor-will, so far away he seems to be whispering, and her heart beat is too loud with her hand beneath her pillow. "Quiet, please. Quiet, please." She can hear the dainty twang as crickets leave the screen.
Night Echoes, and Morning I think of my first lover, the death of my father and sex with any man, in just that order. ŇPlease,Ó I say, wanting to stop. I think of sex with my new lover, pain, and how healing love can be. "Please," I say, wanting more. I think of discussions about death, stupid advice, and having to rise each morning. "Please," I say, wanting to rest. I think of my body, The Temple of the Lord, longing for worship, communion, lying naked between the sheets. "Please," I say, wanting some response. Twilight: night stretches, reaching into the light, like fingers clawing for the small warmth still on the other side of the bed, on the other side of sleep.
Some Lines on Snow and Rising Moons When I lay down in snow beside our child to make snow angels, and I saw you smile-- my heart sped back across the miles and years to the snow-covered yard; the dark, white house of a shut-in neighbor--MamaŐs old friend. The night before we'd made love on the floor. We made the noises we could not suppress. We were not married, and this was a sin Mama could not allow in her house again. It snowed all day. The sky mocked me with cold, virginal flakes, so pure. We went out on the porch to get some fresh night air. I heard Mama cough--pictured her pressed against the door. "LetŐs take a walk," I said, so she could hear. "Don't you two go too far. . ." we heard her say, as we tracked through the yard. I was not as cold as I was afraid. I thought we'd wake the neighbor, give her a heart attack, or worse, she'd tell my Mama what she saw: "He took his coat and placed it on the ground, she slipped her pants down just above her knees, he kept his at his thighs, and through the steam I saw the moon rise many, many times." I doubt she would have put it just that way. When Mama asked about my damp hair, I said, "I made an angel." Mama sighed. Inside, I felt like angels were on fire. Today I want to pull you down with me-- to tell our child to make her own snow man. But, I rise to see the angels we've made; to see our beaming daughter look at me; to feel your arms around my waist, you nudge my hair; to hear, "I love you;" and to know just how the moon will rise in our bedroom.
All poems on this webpage are ©1998-1999 by Geraldine Cannon.