Tuesday Poem: Previously published in Claiming The Spirit Within: A Sourcebook of Women's Poetry, ed. Marilyn Sewell, Beacon Press 1994

 
Painting by Jules Bastien-Lepage 1879

Jeanne d' Arc

The best thing

was when the voices told

her to dress like a boy,

and stepping out of

the homespun skirts, her long

hair in heaps on the floor,

she put on the armor and knew

it would protect her

from rough hands,

from then on becoming her

skin : silvery scales

hardened over her tenderest

places, and she would never have to

be tender again,

not even when the fire,

trying to consume her, curled

every cell black, sent them flying

up through the air, so many

butterflies she watched

circle away and come back

to enclose her again.

So be it, she said,

for eternity encrusted in angels

darkly whispering: Yes.

Tuesday Poem: Previously published in lingerings (online) in 1999

Hog Barn at the State Fair         

  

The next pig out of the chute

is mottled black over pink,

delicately etched, so it looks

like she’s wearing lace.

And she’s running as fast as she can

around the ring, trying to get away

from the man who wants to show her,

so he hits her harder and harder,

with the stick he's supposed to be using

to guide her toward the judges

who want to take a really good look

at the fruits of his husbandry.

Watch her shoot like a bullet on pointy legs,

wounding the audience, and the man too,

now red-faced, huffing after her, his stick

landing hard on her back. The crack of it

like thunder, making us cringe.

I want to squeal when he hits her.

But then someone nearby, whose favorite

food, like my father’s, is big thick pork chops,

might blow his stack. After all she has

too much mind of her own, that pig,
she lacks discipline -- she didn't turn 
when he tapped her gently, did she? 
No, she went the opposite way,

perverse little twit. She asked for it

by slobbering on his pants leg.

Sweet Jesus, when she’s back in the pen,

the applause is a cloudburst that tries to

wash everything clean. Give that man

a ribbon! Make it black and blue!

Quick as the wind, get the next pair

out and running around the ring!

Tuesday Poem: Previously published in The Passaic County Community College Anthology in 1992

We Learn About Love 

from the stories our parents 
tell at the supper table,

like sober news commentators,
creating history, they always begin 
with an axiom: It doesn’t pay 
to be grabby, they say.  
Take Minnie around the corner.

Minnie ran the local grocery for her parents.

She was what we all called homely:

short and brown and thick as a little fireplug.

But Minnie had a beautiful husband,

her father had imported for her from Italy.

And she glowed when she had to talk for him

to the rest of us, which she did 
because he didn't speak English.

Day after day he went off to 
who knows what job or where,

with his black wavy hair, 
white teeth, and permanent tan.

But, let’s face it: what he 
said and did wasn't important.

What was, was that he was Minnie's, 
and that the women

said three Hail Mary’s 
whenever he passed them.

Until one summer this angel 
went up on the roof to fix it,

and in a grab at a sliding hammer 
plunged to the sidewalk 
and broke his neck.

Just like that! My mother 
snapped her fingers,

her whole life gone in a heartbeat!

Minnie must have been shattered,

but two days after the funeral 
she was back, shuffling around 
the store in her mules and peds,

using the claw to grab the heavy 
cans off the shelves, dropping them 
down and catching them in one hand,

like she’d always done. But it 
wasn’t the same. It used to be fun 
to go in there, to watch her dance

with the mop, or sing to 
the baskets of fava beans.

Now the store seemed more
like Pompeii,  what with 
Minnie buried alive 

every night in its ashes.

It's a shame, my mother sighed, 
as she got up to clear the table.

You go after too much, and you’re 
in for nothing but heartache.

Yeah, my father said, as he lit a cigarette,  
it doesn’t pay to kid yourself.

My brother and I swallowed, eyeing each

other through a growing cloud of smoke.

Tuesday Poem: previously published by Salt Hill Journal in 1990 and Caprice in 1992

Cow Crossing

Each one is a black and white newsreel,

an ache of bones undulating,

a moan against gravity.

Big as cars, they

lurch across the road,

rumble and bellow, eyes bulging

at the boy who shoos them barnward,

as chased and clucked toward milking

they go, placing one dainty hoof

in front of another, careful as two

tightrope walkers, encased in a cow suit,

afraid of falling.

All go except the one

who turns her dark face away from the rest,

flicks her tail at the boy,

at his calls and whistles,

as if he were just a big fly.

She wants to stay lost

in the apples and timothy of the pasture forever.

She twitches and shoulders the air,

sweeping away the stone walls,

the stanchions and hungry machines,

with her slow head.

The stuff in her velvet bag

will clot and curdle

if he doesn't coax her out soon.

What can she do?

Caught, she lows to him softly.