USA

erg5h@virginia.edu 

Winter Kitchen

No insulation, the kitchen added
like an afterthought to the old house:
my mother wore a scarf over brown hair
washed with gray, lifted her skirt
to the oven door to warm her thighs.

At the heater, counting blue fingers
of gas, I crouched on linoleum tacked down
where it buckled in periodic waves,
in the spell of icelight listened
to my mother reading recipes aloud,
her hands snowy with flour.

Stars clustered on the kitchen window
like white deer in a story. 
I remembered being here before
maybe when I was someone else. Nothing
to do, so I fried scraps of dough
on top of the hissing gas heater
when my mother kneaded bread,
or nibbled the sour-sweet parsnips
she slivered into a heap of thin bones. 
Behind me, the back door swelled
in its frame, stuck shut all winter.

(originally published in PIGEON CREEK)

In Those Days

Sex hung over the house
like a giant apple, the red planet
under whose sign we were born:
two daughters busily hemming
our skirts shorter each night
by television light, our dowries
two pairs of good legs. Our father,
standing still, seemed to be
drifting in the other direction.
Our mother made cranberry salad
and candied pears to keep us
satisfied. She hated the dark, hungry
mouths we painted on, believing
we'd grow into them.

(originally published in POEM)

At the Daycare Center

In the next room the mothers
intone the strange new
language: "I am happy,
you are happy." Their children
Nan, Tru, Tung and the. others
chatter in English,
have already begun to forget Vietnamese.
They hover over a swatch of brown paper.
Their long brushes
flame into trees
with hands that cry out, spindly and green.
Here in the jungle, lambs and tulips
straggle under the tiger's claw.
A dangerous rose, pink and hungry
swallows a foolish peacock.
With what care red Tarzan
stretches balloon arms
above Boy's head, as both balance
precariously on an elephant's neck.
Blue summer rain, white winter snow
fall together. Above it all
the sun and moon
make eyes from opposite corners.

(originally published in SING HEAVENLY MUSE)

© All Copyright, 2000, Elizabeth Ray Gargano.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.