Poetry by Janet I. Buck

February 7th, 2000

On this day, Charles Dickens was born
and so were you.
The Beatles went on their first road tour.
Laura Ingalls Wilder popped out
of a womb and you did too.
She wrote of prairies you have scoured.
Sinclair Lewis made his mother scream.
I expect you did the same to ours.
All quilting squares of heritage.
Some great battle fought and lost.
I forget its name.
Remember yours.

You are famous to your kids
for loving them, brushing hair
from sticky eyes like cotton
candy at a fair when boyfriends
up and dump and lumps in throats
grow big as china Faberge.
Straightening all those crooked ties
and swastikas of daily chores.
Porch swing creak of simple joy
you navigate and pass along
like mashed potatoes on a spoon.

Your house a tile of sweet mosaics;
moccasins (feet not snakes)
in barns out back where bales of hay
turn lavender and horses
whinny at the fence.
Glory and fortune of motherhood
I've never known --
sometimes I live jealous of.
But, God, the dent you've made
in souls no poet can invent or size.
We're all stray cats, smelly,
wishful, hungry too,
rubbing up against screen doors.

*** For Cindy

Cold Beet Soup

He came so close --
smooches on the cheek
of death -- had to be
that chilled beet soup
and not emotion's
tumbleweeds.
He lived in
trouble's database.

A doctor filling
body bags with
fine ash sand
of helplessness.
Born to be a fixer --
failing, wailing
sailing in a tipped canoe
through freezing
tributaries of the sea.

The cancer ward.
Leukemia.
That L-shaped
couch of hopelessness.
Redness in his evening face
when smirked defeat
had taken patients,
pushed them down
a sewer's grate.

We should have fathomed
quietude as root-bound
wishing for relief.
Instead of judging
crimson borscht
and railing at
cold undertows.

Gumdrops

The color of death
showed in your smile.
Teeth like licorice gumdrops.
Finalizing carnivals.
Dandruff on pillows
matched your hair --
crumbled cornbread in a breeze.
You were ready and prepared
to meet the dark, but
tethers of my pressing love
would hold you back
and make you strain.
One last ride on Ferris wheels
I thought was fair --
not some kind of winter joke
like primrose boutonnieres in snow.

Deep voyages had ships at port.
Calling your name like sex
calls dogs in heat to fences,
digging through the mud
and grime for some strong instinct
tied to puzzles tied to time.
This suffocating leaving stuff
dominated everything.
I just kept reaching for your youth.
Hated all this 'weighing in'
you called the open mouth of mortal
stepping through a closing door.

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