Poetry Magazine, Janet Buck, March 2000

Janet Buck

USA

Button Moons

I am a spot on January's
cold damp rag--
under press of winter's thumb.
Tea bag clouds sit
heavy, wind-less packages.
Slow time tick
like nervous crickets
under creaking wooden decks.

I want spring's music
to return in lexicons
of toasted bricks
and sprouting weeds.
For maxims of a petaled rose
to show their hands.
Scissored into chosen vases
on the sill.

For light to pierce
the shades I've closed.
For dirt to warm
my fingernails.
Glossaries of renaissance
where button moons
come out to play
like footnotes to a symphony
or nipples on a baby bottle
filling up with simmered milk.

Lighting Soggy Firewood

Beneath applied sonata smiles
lay carrier monkeys of grief possessed.
Sensing where a nipple lived.
Smart erections. Carnal lies.
Legs were soggy firewood.
Stairways made of marble slides.
A windy beach would catch
a crutch and bury it in funneled sand.
Eruptions of a brewing self
were slow to come
like sticky eyes that wake with crusts
of burning past they cannot face.

Poetry was acetone that cut through
thin veneer to earth.
The other palm tree waving here
held coconuts of loving eyes.
He put her pain ahead of hers.
Plot was thick with listen wires,
unselfishness, and sacrifice.
He handled bones post-surgery
like snowflakes landing in his hands.

A Tea Cup's Loop

A true tear's oil leak in courage blocks
was hard to find.
Halcyon smiles, cliches of hubris,
burned their rubber on rainy streets.
He was a tough well to tap.
Losing his father at fourteen years--
running the farm 'til
he hated the scent of baled hay,
but forked as obligation must.

Cancer bit his wife and won.
Two little girls were his to raise.
Manly, strong, omniscient thumbs
that fumbled with a tea cup's loop.
It's the story of grief
usurping sunlight with its grip.
Denial was a cozy fire
and I was good at adding sticks.

Clean, white rags of poetry
were messing up a neat garage.
Amputated legs are sad,
but hearts with clots are even worse.
I wonder if he'll read my book--
if tender is too much to take.
If on the road will ever reach
beyond a slab of tar and wheels.

The Conductor

Hands perched on stretching,
waiting time like tremulous wings
of hummingbirds.
At seven years, I thought
he should get on with it.
Supper was late. My stomach growled.

At twenty years,
I thought of sex--
music held anticipation in its arms.
At thirty, I watched
his fingers shrinking.
Dreamt of dishes in the sink.

At over forty,
the score was
a different-shaped
lament like aching knees
that called for prayer
despite the crookedness of stance.

At sixty, I'll probably eat first,
creak in body crate,
interpret treble clefs,
sonatas, flats and sharps,
broken reeds as scars
upon deserving horns.

And in the grave,
its halo wraps around a moon
like silent wind;
his syncopation lives in ways
my ticket strained to paper walls
but obligations peeled back.

The Falling Jail

Motion lives mostly by taking
a poised baseball bat and slamming
it through glass trials.
Cut crystal of knowing
too much of carnal flaw
shimmers like headlights
shattered from an accident.
My stump is round
like a Faberge egg,
except its beauty lies inside
the way I make my will behave.
Erection means more
when you're on the ground.
Sitting in drawn blood of eyes.
Wishing they were spackled
on any other curio.

Cameo smiles are weak retorts.
Up, up, up is the rule.
I wipe loose coffee stains I leave,
proceeding with my destiny.
Like windows in a new sedan
reacting to a thunderbolt.
I hide my face from scrutiny.
Lock the basement door of mind.
Thick tornadoes spin
their cotton candy here.
But the art of deciding
it matters more to move at all
than quibble over minor spills
is what revives adrenaline.