Barbara Lefcowitz
DANCING ON THE DECK
They're dancing on the deck
to the wind's music
stems leaves blossoms
in a fluted urn
swaying and shuffling
to the cakewalk rhythms
of light breezes, as if
they will never stop, shift pace
So when the winds become stronger
the dancers go on, this time
to a livelier beat, closer to
a ragtime waltz, ca. 1912
Not far away the branches of an oak
that stood on the roadside
before there was a road
also frolic, it's late April
and nor'easters are for winter
But soon a gust shears off
the oak's entire trunk near
where its roots began
it falls across wires
without the least hesitation
rolls to a halt
so cars have to swerve
crash into each other
Witnesses wonder why
that tree and not the others
and why those BMWs and Jaguars,
a shame, things like that
don't happen around here.
When the urn is blown
off the deck blossoms
and leaves tearing loose
tumbling onto the road
smashed bits of the urn's
fluted cement turning up
miles away no one believed
weather forecasts
any more than before
having sworn off both chance
and augury what the hell
could they have done anyway
TOXIC BERRIES
Brazen as fake jewels,
alluring as the quince and apple,
beads and coins on display,
since ancient times
toxic berries have tricked
those who wandered past
enticed them to pluck and taste
the splendid globes of flesh,
swallow them even if bitter
despite suspicion such berries
can cause deafness, pain, even death;
the yewberries, the pokeberries that shift
between rose, red, and purple, clusters
of bright orange fire weeds for the greedy.
Some say they embody nature's evil.
More likely they satisfy the need for decor
to please the eye rather than appease
the hunger for food,
except for a few birds,
who can feast and behold at the same time
unlike people who lust
for every color in the field
cart them home to show off
despite suspicion the colors
soon will sneak back
to refurbish the stalks
from which they'd been wrested.
BLUE BOTTLE
My plastic bottle of water
with its blue Dasani label
and scrolled outer sash
has a blue inner life
though surely the bottle's not Green.
Like its ordinary kin, its toxins
will not dissolve for eons
while it continues to contribute
its carbon foot
to the air's contamination
But is not such artistry
worth the risk?
The whirlpools of blue rings
that ripple when I hold it upright,
cascades of small sapphires,
scrolled diamond shapes that
expand with each silvery tilt,
surprise of a large five-petalled
white flower floating to the top
when I turn its neck to the light
and look straight down;
the flower turning black
with a slight shift of angle,
folding up in the dark
to bloom again with the sun
no matter how hot its blaze
Rumors of a bottle roundup
arise daily with strict orders
to recycle, a sort of mouth
to mouth resuscitation
until someone figures how to
purge them without enhancing
their power to release yet more poison
Still I'll keep it hidden
so it's the sole survivor
of doomed art, what else to do
with this treasure
meant for a museum not a landfill
nor a succession of hands
that likely will never
contemplate the beauty
of that blue inner life.
IN-FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM
The woman seated in front of me
has no idea
what's going on behind her back
where a gun-toting gangster
is about to shoot a cop, ca. 1930.
I tap my screen and puppets
perform a hula dance tap tap
a map of Labrador
which we've been flying above
for at least an hour
tap a clash of samurai swords
tap tap a man's driving a Mercedes
who slightly resembles my late great-uncle Herman
tap can that be Marilyn Monroe risen from the dead
to rejoin Tony Curtis? Damn, the woman in front
pushes her seat all the way back
Some Like it Hot landing on my food tray.
What does the person behind me see―
an x-ray of my spine? my deepest secrets?
He roars with laughter. An orgy from a
porno flick must be taking place
behind me. For the hell of it
I make my seat recline
so his monitor knocks over his beer
just at the critical moment, the world
behind my back a blank screen again.
Barbara F. Lefcowitz has published nine poetry collections. Her latest
collection, The Blue Train to America," appeared in January 2007. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have been
published in over 500 journals, and she has won writing fellowships and prizes
from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller
Foundation, and several individual journals.
A native New Yorker, Lefcowitz has lived most of her life in Bethesda,
Maryland.
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