The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Noel Smith

THE FILLING OF HOLES

On the way to the tide pools
Annie and I stopped near where the sea
crashes into the caverns.
Before us was a rock
with a gaping hole
like a womb to be filled.
Annie pitched white pebbles
into it to see which would
miss, bounce, or be washed out
by a chance wave. 
And which would stay.
Each pebble was a baby
she had never had.
Annie began placing
bleached stones in all the rock
sockets she could reach
until the entire cliff was one
face with many white eyes
like a site of an ancient ritual
of filling where once there was nothing.          


FIRST BLESSING

St. Juste, the sorcerer with little baby teeth
who lives in Port au Prince
between All Souls' Cemetery and the sewer
is putting together a bottle.
In it are the shavings
of two skulls
perfumed oils, earth, seeds,
rum and leaves.
This is a paste of dead and alive.
Baby teeth baby teeth
 
Around the outside of the bottle
he wraps cloth the color of blood
and sets out cradling it under his shirt.
Two skulls two skulls, 
And past the tin hovels, dusty alley
lined by peering eyes, as
along he limps through the runoff's stench
and around the corner
oils, earth, seeds, rum, leaves,
paste of dead and alive 
to stop at the green door. 
He holds the bottle up to the east
for a very long time,
and knocks where the child
has been born.
 

ARACHNID SASS
 
I say, that web is a mess you know, little fuzz
hung between nothing but my hat and the back of the chair.
No class.  Where are the fine spun wheels of silver
which your yankee kin spin? No grandeur.