Frame of Bone and copper
Working days open familiar drawers
Other closets remain closed.
Arches over sunlit space hold up our yearning.
Tattered pennants chatter in the breath of all the world.
Blood rises to light, sun pulls skin to groan.
Wet weave stretched, drawn like canvas,
pulled up, out, over frame of bone and unbent copper.
Feast days, overstayed, pick up remnants of joy.
Sop up, sweep away sour excess.
Sponges, soaked in the blood of saints,
drop-cloths spattered with red mist,
All traces of martyrs wrung out of rags,
drained from mops, rinsed, hung out.
Working clothes, soaked, bleached, flapping.
Look below the line, into the leaves in the corner,
under dust, under grime,
where crawl your sisters, mites and mildew,
there at the root of us. Under the pavement,
under stones soil sisters hum and breathe. The long light of dusk
blunts July's fire. Death is a calendar date,
midweek moment of transformation.
Blue balloon is slipping away on Ilsa's hopes,
growing smaller in bluer eyes.
Still she mourns the loss,
forgotten though it was in a nap.
White rabbits can cross oceans.
Be careful when you chase them.
Oh yes, you will chase them.
Theresa wept long ago, under the clothesline.
Farewells blown across the hawkweed and chicory,
down steel roads, over oceans,
called out to Vincenz and Rudolph,
hushed in the fog breath of drivers,
silenced in the steam whistle.
No longer mourn we the loss, unlisted,
though remembered in quietude.
A link to some historical background.
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule
day/time est/edt series editor(s)
Sunday6:00 PM Young Reader's Pavilion The Book Bear (last Sun of the month)
7:30 PM LGBT Literature Chrislove (occasional)
9:30 PM SciFi/Fantasy Book Club quarkstomper
Monday 1:00 PM Grokking Republicans Mokurai(occasional)
8:00 PM Books! Susan Grigsby
Tuesday 5:00 PM Indigo Kalliope: Poems from the Left Kit RMP, ruleoflaw
8:00 PM Contemporary Fiction Views bookgirl
Wednesday 7:30 AM WAYR? plf515
8:00 PM Bookflurries Bookchat cfk
Thursday2:00 PM Self-Publishing 101 akadjian
8:00 PM Write On! SensibleShoes
2:00 PM Monthly Bookpost AdmiralNaismith
Friday8:00 AM Books In My Life Phoebe Loosinhouse (alternate Fridays)
8:00 PM Books Go Boom! BrechtSaturday9:00 AM
You Can't Read That! Paul's Book Reviews pwoodford
9:00 PM Books So Bad They're Good Ellid