Poetry Magazine Janet I. Buck

Janet I. Buck

USA

Peppercorns in Cookie Dough

Pain rubs paint raw.
A sandpaper secret to cover up,
but open sores of amputation
never have delicious slights.
Our reefs, full moons in naked skies.
I'd donate blood and hook you up to courage
pumps if that would stock your winter caves
with summer roses from my yard.
But virus beaters of raw strength
must come from your artesian wells.
Bringing muscles back from strokes.
Hauling off your tubs and needles--
hauling in will's iron lung.

Just sitting here and watching you
in atrophy and apathy.
Your tendons tipped against the wind,
walking no apparent miles.
Pits of hurt like peppercorns
in cookie dough spice and burn
the blessings that your body knew.
I know this void beneath your dress
as well as some old mumbled prayer.
Same old stink in different clothes,
our destinies seem dirty snags--
one long run in pantyhose.

Acid dripping from your tongue
will eat your frame as certainly as polio.
Turn your anger inside out;
use the scent in concrete ways.
A sun is just a figurehead
until you box thick clouds and lift.
Buckets, buckets, bitter paint
line hollows of a subway wall.
Clenching fists of coming back
are up to you and you alone.
No one can make you eat or dream
or raise the roof of living dead.
We wear the kind of phantom pain
that drugs will try but never touch.

Stripped Wheat

65 pounds. Cropped hair.
Smile reversed like oatmeal bowls
turned upside down in fits you've earned.
Pale cheeks lit by bitter.
Stories of that nursing home escaping
from lips in whistling steam.
Arms as thin as stripped wheat stalks;
bruises in land mine red and a fire inside
that only wishes the war would stop.
"Your husband asked me to visit you."
Lift your spirits with tales of triumphs
laced with hope. I stare in the face
of a wet, skinned bird and fumble seeds
of platitude like glitter from a Hallmark card.
Show you the curves of my plastic leg;
coax you to stand to test your strength.
"Squeeze my hand as hard as you can
and show me how your muscles work."
From out of that baggy sweatshirt come taut
mad claws aware a boiling pot is near.
My fingers crushed by speed of sound
applied to will, leaving giant crimson welts.
We talk about poor and losing a leg,
bills that fall around your foot
like wedding rice of destiny.

"They left me, you know, strapped to a bed
in that nursing home (age 58, curdled by stroke).
The infection in my foot untouched.
Double doses of little white meds
like fairies falling from a sky.
To keep my temper in its place.
It needed to stand and walk those halls.
My leg is gone. Look, I'll show you.
This is all they left. That's it."
You roll up your pants with one free hand,
curling the condom of discontent.
Out comes dry baguette of stump.
I pick you up and perch your foot
like robins on a swinging wire.
Stench of immobility invades
each topic that I brush.
I cup my hands and hold the void
with tarnished knowledge of the Fall.
The holy grail of bended knee
will have to be my knuckles locked.

Summary's turn reveals again
base disgust with penniless.
"I was always sick. Forever sick.
In the hospital, they took my shin
when I was a child to give it to an injured boy--
his parents paid my medical bills.
That was the trade I had to make."
Earthquake cracks of silence hit;
speechless crouching in its seams.
When I rise to leave, you fondle
foam beneath my slacks.
Our height and width so much the same.
Our shoe size is identical.
Gangrene horrors lace this pond;
My palms seem useless lily pads.
I offer you parts of a used old leg.
In my head, I'm making plans
to get you to a better doctor--
one you will hug not wish to shoot.
"You'll have to gain some muscle tone--
test your limits pressing in.
Arch your one remaining foot,
wedges of a crescent moon
that climb the trellis of a fence.
I tell you to eat and feed you mints.
Planning fat and happy times
in corners of deep hunger's land.
Your neighbor walks me to my car
and compliments my fortitude
like post cards of a coliseum
falling from a pocketbook.
"You brought her back to life, you know.
Lit a candle in a hole.
She needed words, I'm sad to say,
from someone stuck to fathom's bench."

Bristles on the Brink of Death

Flesh so thin--nearly
a see-through negligee.
Old age was a fact you didn't expose.
I wasn't prepared for
bristles on the brink of death.
A rooster rubbing against sharp wire.
Crazy chickens in a yard
came crowing as the silence bloomed.
The signs were there.
Days were like those filler pages
tucked between chapters of closing books.
You couldn't read without your eyes.
"Yesterday I dawdled some;
today I'm in reverse again."
I played with gears
like children fumble with a car
before they take their driver's test.
Your hair had turned a moldy white--
like calm brioche that falls
off backs of bakery trucks.
You couldn't see the Revlon red
I painted over drying lips.

Flesh so thin--a bruise emerged
when fingers brushed across its scales.
Insisting on early birthday gifts
in case, in case "the fiddle
has no second chance to play
a round of thank you notes."
Unacquainted with tombs as I was,
protected by you from raw eclipse.
I wish I had been in the room
when you left. But didn't have
the wherewithin to dwell
in time's receding tides.
Your death caught me
naked and balance-less.
At a selfish crossing of surety
assuming reveille was near.