The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Moira Egan

ADULTERESS AUBADE

How strange it is to wake beside you, love,
who've only slept a few nights in my bed.
You comment on the coo of mourning doves,
those sounds I woke to wanting you instead,
the nights I slept alone, your books in bed
beside me and not you.  I never cried
(I think that's true, of all the things I've said).
We lie together, wrapped within a lie.

The morning light pours in, reminds us of
the other places where we've slept.  Instead
we will the slowing of the shadow of
the sundial, of your hands behind my head.
We will make time stand still, the poet said
that that was possible.  I know you've tried
to master fate, the snipping of her thread.
We lie together, wrapped within a lie.

That cord's been cut.  I know it hurts, but love,
the wound will heal, the throbbing will go dead
in time.  The phantom limb, the empty glove
will quit your dreams.  The spider in her web
repeats that pattern, awful flow and ebb
of weaving strands to trap a simple fly.
You've left your web of years, now in my bed
let's lie together, wrapped within our lie.

 
I AM

inertia: body resting and in motion.
Who knew that after all those years of flight,
eluding Love and Muse, and crossing oceans,
that ruby-slipper trick would bring me right
back where I need to be.  So fond of motion,
I'll try to love this still and starless night,
the black hole into which I thought emotions
had disappeared like diamonds absent light.

You steal my pulse like thunder, or a bass.
(That panther in her cage is wild to hold
although she paces mildly, as if tamed.)
And in your parenthetical embrace,
the marks your fingers leave, I have recalled
the urge, liturgical, to chant your name.
 

HIGH SCHOOL CORRIDOR, EARLY MORNING

Lonely figure
curled, a comma,
she sits and knits,
early morning
Norn or goddess
in the hallway.
Tiles glow, sunrise
fuchsia-suffused
and gold.  One day
she said she lost
her city, dis-
oriented,
she asked me which
corner was east.

She says a scarf
is the only
thing she knows how
to make, it's straight
and has no join
or corners.  Seams
mystify her. 

Every morning
she waits for me.
I have the key
to let her in
to my classroom.
I am older
than her mother,
she informs me
and this morning
she seems to want
to cry. 
 

VENUS® DIVINE™
    (so what makes it different, anyway?)