Four Poems

Malinda Markham

TO UNDERSTAND FLIGHT

Wet hands work quickly, cartilage shines into light.

Do not turn to what you once knew and yes

I would stitch this house this person to the ground

If I could. One day, Grass said to the Rain, Do not leave.

Do not dry between the fingers and leave powder

Behind. Outside this house of memory and bricks,

I plucked a wing fine to see the mechanics of flight.

How could anyone move with skin exposed like this

And waiting? Memories collect at the feet and trellis

Over the knees. Don’t imagine the pull didn’t hurt

Or the sound. I fear the ground is watching, the sky ready

To answer in rain. To loose feathers, first close the lids

to spare them. That day, gray light spilled into crevices,

covered the hands in down. I was warm.

GIVE ME CLOSED DOOR

Give me bright cloth to cover stains on the wood.

Give me animal body in the arms,

cold wall and skin

to withstand it. Strong surfaces, they say,

will not list in wind.

This jacket smells of salt and brick. Where did

the warm gloves

go? Divide all words among seven

people. Let them speak as one. Divide

their hands into leaves that bend

at a touch. People are trees and will not

remember the wind. Give me salt-filled cup

until I sicken. Give me

cool hand on forehead or apple

to touch to the lips. Circle the names

to be saved in red ink, circle everything you want

to remember but can’t. I was a sailor once

and woke to a throat quickly closing. I was an instrument too

and measured direction

of sound. Sing now

until you cannot

sleep. Sing until I wake and kneel at the door.

The plants are dusty, can you hold them

till they’re clean? Can you

love the hard chair as it loves you

deeply? Give me another’s hand to the mouth

until I recall what the thin mouth

is for. Animals eat

with flexible jaws, sleep like injury

and glass. This table is stained

with irregular flags. Seven people speak pale

like light. Here is a face,

and only a coin could carve the lips

rounder. Give me

closed door and a mouth

to open

on cue. This is a gift. There is skin

that will save you and skin

that will give you away.

CHASE SCENE

Acorns are fortunate, are collected like pills

children find after their mother

is dead. How many questions

can one clock

hold? They find the secret places

and take

everything they can. (Look at this picture

snapped in the rain. Find the figure

made of paper and twig.) Oh the shame

of old stories—is that how

the song goes? In the car,

they sang out sounds

for the words

they didn’t know. The mother passed

coffee-flavored candies

around. (The tea has turned

lukewarm

and dull. Do not drink it

or eat the little cakes

unless you must.) In this verse,

the sweets are soft inside

and good. They make the teeth ache,

don’t crack the shell

at once. (Sugar hardens on the saucer.

Leave that for the cat.)

Across the yard, a boy buries quarters

in mud. The girls chase a ball

into a cropping of rock. (If the trees crumble

to ash. If birds break into bits

that cling

to people’s clothes

as they run—) Good children cut bread

into strips. They avoid power lines

in thunder and empty

their pockets at night. Who saves

that acorn now loses it

in spring.

The boy’s quarters were seeds, his sisters

sprang from each husk.

One will meet fire, one metal,

and one unmineralled soil. Which memory

did you think

you would find? To run right

is to know the rules

completely. (If the animals uncover

their teeth, if the soldiers find you

at home as you are—)

AFTER AESOP

An animal must live under the water. Hear children calling

out the window like glass.

Water in the hand roars like the sea and orders itself into pleats.

I am thirsty, thinks the bird. Who

could possibly resist?

Whatever moves draws objects nearby into its shape. Come with me once, and I will make you into

whatever you please.

This is a cage, a desert, a fear.

They string the balcony green with nets to keep the pigeons out. The garbage to keep out the crows.

There are two ways to devise this world. In one,

I nail nets to the posts; in the other, I watch a net like a painting keep me

from food. This is a plum, a bone, an excuse.

Or from beneath a net to see if anyone tries

to take me despite.

This world is noisy in squares.

I am thirsty, said the painting on the wall. Water is time

pulled like lament between two blue hills and the museum

always is closing. Wings bruise against the glass. A bird already has swallowed

The paint and its master.

“Come again,” the sign says.

Don’t speak. Push bills through the slot in the door.

Where is the cage now, when animals swim without moving? Bring the mouth to water—

What memory to you touch?

What water. Originally, the character for grief was drawn partly with mind,

partly with upturned foot. In the dictionary (entry #1871)

Found between to tempt and to melt.

Just look this time.

The hotel is open, if anyone wants to rest. Money in the basin and weather

in the palm. This is not sky, not water.

To drink.

With a tearing of wings, the bird threw itself into the frame.

Nets opened and closed, looking

Remarkably like hands. Comfort lives in the eyes nor the mouth,

anyway. A passer-by

Will arrive to abbreviate the scene.

#307. A pigeon, driven by thirst, saw a basin [krater] of water in a painting and believed it to be real. So, with a great flapping of wings, the bird hurtled itself against the the picture rashly and broke the tips of its wings. Falling to the ground, the pigeon was caught by a stranger who happened to be there (Aesop 223).