1. The Bloodless Violets
And he remembered the death of his grandmother
whose hands were accustomed to draw white curtains about him
before he moved to Electric Avenue . . .
In childhood’s spectrum of violence, she remained pale,
a drift of linen among tall, sunny chambers.
It was not ordained by God, nor any minister of Him,
that time should be caught in the withered crook of her elbow
or that she who would not
give injury to birds,
had nevertheless been called upon to carry
a cage full of swallows into an evil guest chamber
because her hands,
the knuckles of which were arthritic,
finger tips numbed by winter,
could not disengage
the long-ago hairpin twisted about the cage door . . .
But Spring’s first almost bloodless violets were removed
from the washing machine in the basement,
making it plain
why such a contagion of languor,
brought indoors with the laundry,
made visitors yawn.
Possibly also explaining why slumber’s mischievous matchmaking
had put him to bed with young witches,
indistinct beings anonymous of gender,
some of them only a hollowness fastened upon his
groin
and drawing, drawing,
the jelly out of his bones and leaving him only,
finally,
coldly —
the damp initial of Eros.
2. Episode
And then the long, long peltering schools of rain!
Ozzie, the black nurse,
tussles with the awnings,
a peppery kind of battle
in which she is worsted.
— Lightning,
her starched white skirt,
is yanked across heaven!
Aw, God, Mizz Williams!
— horse liniment stung her,
And in the morning,
a telephone pole in our attic,
slippery, blanched —
A Mississippi tornado!
3. The Paper Lantern
My sister was quicker at everything than I.
At five she could say the multiplication tables
with barely a pause for breath,
while I was employed
with frames of colored beads in Kindy Garden.
At eight she could play
Idillio and The Scarf Dance
while I was chopping at scales and exercises.
At fifteen my sister
no longer waited for me,
impatiently at the White Star Pharmacy corner
but plunged headlong
Then vanished completely —
for love’s explosion, defined as early madness,
consumingly shone in her transparent heart for a season
and burned it out, a tissue-paper lantern!
— torn from a string!
— tumbled across a pavilion!
flickering three times, almost seeming to cry . . .
My sister was quicker at everything than I.