Idiotic wandering this wondering
exactly smacking guessing wistful
how a Christmas stocking feels
that has a real leg inside.
Drop-kick envy’s marbles rolling
under dressers, in the closet,
mowing down the brittle grass
to make a cave of hay and pride.
I spend a stanza pulling strings
from rubber, stale celery stalks.
Stand my dolls on kitchen counters,
just pretending we can waltz.
They have perfect knees, of course,
like new erasers on a pencil.
Haven’t born the tumbleweeds
and bristles of intruding knives.

Behind the curtain, rolling gurneys.
Hips are wired and screaming shock.
I have worn the mask of “fine”
so long I think I almost trap
the alligators suiting up
in mossy swamps of anger’s bile.
At night with you, I’m never naked.
Still I’m barer in our bed
than I have been with any man.
Something in the arch of faith
has lined the bow of honest clamps.
Something in the bunk of loving,
well, has bombed the Klu Klux Klan.
It rides at night when I’m asleep.
Has to do with wraps of you.
Curved in spoons instead of claws.
The missing slipper matters less.
Touch-me-nots of isolation
move in waves like shoveled sand.

by Janet I. Buck

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Updated August 10, 2000