USA

Jjkudler@aol.com

Letter from Amelia


Suppose you¹d grown
beyond compassion,
beyond the sudden tweak
of need, the tug of
human love.

Suppose the traps were
sprung, the categories
that contained you
emptied:
wife daughter
helpmate nurse.
the small rooms where
you¹d played your life
in hushed half tones -

why then a plane
becomes your music,
the instrument panel
spread out before you
like a keyboard only
you know how to play.

Don¹t talk to me of
loss. I held the whole
sky in my right hand -
warm body of the throttle
quivering in my fingers
like a finch -

drew the long stick
downward to my knee,
then rose oh slowly
through the slanted air
toward morning.

To The Woman Who Will Open This Time Capsule 100 Years From Now


I am sending you the Sonia Henie doll
on miniature skates -
everything to be desired, balanced
on the edges of serrated blades.

I am sending you the waist cincher
I wore to my first dance,
the Merry Widow I wore to my last -
breasts pressed up, out, together -
twin offerings on the altar of enticement.

I am sending you the hip smoother,
tummy hugger hose, two way
stretch, three way mirror that hissed
every morning of my insufficiency
and I am sending you my bridal veil
behind whose tulle I peered out
at a newly narrowed universe.

I am sending you the stories:
the one about the girl whose life
was a slumber till awakened
by the kiss of a prince
and the one about the girl
whose life was servitude till
saved by the favor of a prince

and I am sending you the Book
about the women in whose
ever-receptive, ever-waiting
wombs, God played out His
holy plans for men.

I hope you will open
this package tenderly
as one might open the low
door of a forgotten playhouse,
all the while remembering
childhood - the pleasures, yes,
but also the gated-off rooms,
the hushes,
the harrowing dependencies.

I hope you will try to find
us here, hidden as we are,
among the shards of what
we thought we were.

© All Copyright Jackie Kudler, December 1999.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.