Month: December 2004

Left to Their Own Devices
by Joan Pond

Men in her life were like the hamsters
she”d had as a child.
Left too long by a radiator,
they cooked.
Or, as the one she took,
limp,
from his shoe-box house;
he”d given up the ghost
when he couldn”t breathe.
It wasn”t easy remembering to give them
water and rodent feed.
Returning from school,
their bodies as lumps of clay;
where she”d left them in cages
to play with sharp objects.
Leslie would say,
“Men left to their own devices,
were like the hamsters
she”d had as a child.”

***

Zero Hour
I knew the stars by name,
for my father and I
had charted the heavens.
Canis Major and Carina,
Auriga and Centaurus.
Soon,
they would exhaust
their energy,
becoming so dense,
not even light would escape.
They”d collapse under their weight,
and the fate of new stars
would be determined.
Simply,
from an amalgam
of hydrogen and helium.
A new universe
begun,
ad infinitum.

A Graceland Christmas
As Paul held me near,
an artificial tree limb poked me in the back.
Jesus,
I”d be impaled by a pagan symbol
on December twenty-third
and I wouldn”t get to open my gifts.
Then I wondered
if I looked as uncomfortable
as I felt.
My skirt was riding up my legs,
stockings were bunched at my knees.
My blouse was wrinkled
and the limb from the tree
could puncture a lung.
I glanced at our reflection in the window.
Two middle-aged frumps,
clinging to each other.
And as the red lights on the tree flickered,
I knew this would be another blue,
blue,
Christmas.

***

Optokinetics

I can”t see you,

he would say

when wishing to shun.

What could I do

to make my presence known

again?

Relegated to a winter”s garden.

Fronds of fern

withered by frost,

and pines

with wintergreened tops.

Barely surviving in this solstice;

the penumbra of his light.

I sought clemency

while shivering

and seeking

his sight.

***