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Julie Platt USA
jplatt@email.stvincent.edu
Caucasus
On hearing of this land,
I rose from the weariness of my river
house, the sick blue snows of my roof.
Their maps have lied to me again,
these black-eyed prophets, these boys,
these alchemists, these angels.
Now, even my lantern cannot save me.
It aches for heat's black veil
flying up through dunes, through
rock and red-skinned sky.
But no sands dance for me—
no gold bodies rise
from ten-foot thick stone,
nor drop diamonds on diamonds
in the holy wind.
I empty my eyes
and turn them inside out,
follow roads into cities
from Caspian to Black,
cities destroyed,
cities waking up.
I cannot destroy
the locks on the doors
of the desert, cannot find
my heart beating
like an awakened woman.
I toss like the dead
in their too-heavy sheets,
fix the notes of my screams
until they shatter.
All I can do
is batter these shelves of trees
until the trees win,
pile rank earth up so high
no one notices.
All I can see
are the roots of grass
biting upwards like fish,
their basins filled
forever and green.
© Copyright, 4/99, Julie Platt.
Losing Another One
His mahogany hide fades,
a rich flower watered too little.
Every cell like steam
dropping from his tongue.
His eyes bruise quietly,
abscessed gates, fish
in the stomach of God.
He feels the depth
of water tables without looking,
slowly stamping out the way,
the forgotten world of desert ice,
the birthrights lost long before
translation. He can see voices.
Do they look like mountains?
wheels? ghosts? I know
he sees more shades of blue
than I do, more silence,
more answers. What do we
give up when a horse dies?
Trances, dialogues. A house
where mud breathes out
of stars, whole reed mats
woven in the black sweat of mane.
The blood in his cough,
the great hieroglyph,
mapped out in deep red roads.
The Haunt
Night begins its slow drag
through the fields. Hills
settle down, wrapped in their blankets
of loam. They curl around
their treasures once more—
coal, so thick and sweet,
no one dares to touch.
Mere yards away from life, I walk
through the farmhouse,
make the bed grandfather lived
and died in. No one bales the hay
scattered across the road,
no one picks up arrowheads now.
In the kitchen, my grandmother reads,
even as the light slowly drains
from her eyes and veins,
even as her very skin dims.
From the cast-iron mailbox down the road,
I bring her three weeks worth
of Sunday papers,
but she has already gone to bed.
Through the windows I can feel
the haunt. My uncle died
in the tub we all bathe in.
I close the doors, shut off
the lights, prepare to spend the night
among the grains, gather bedding.
I fill the fields with my shadows.
Nothing moves very quickly. I
settle down, wrapped in my blankets of cotton.
I curl around the corn, so dry and heavy,
nothing dares to touch,
and I do not dare to breathe.
© All Copyright, Julie Platt.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.
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