Full Of Crow Poetry: January 2010

Full Of Crow Poetry: January 2010

Bridges are human-made structures that connect the separate realms of the living.

It seemed fitting to open my debut editorial issue with Gail Gray’s The Quintessential Language of Bridges. As this issue emerged and took form, what I found most intriguing,  despite the unique voices of each poet, were the connections —the relationships between poems—the appearance of creatures—cats from Spain, puffy pawed dogs, the violated crayfish, and the Cheeto eating x-box player, all coming together in what Lisa Zaran captures so well in her small poem, Bamboo:

“There are instances I find my hands,

rare occasions my voice cries

out from a throat,

I thought was yours

Perhaps, that is what drives poetry—the need to write it, and the need to share it— I am grateful to each writer in this issue, for sharing the ethereal nature of writing and reading—the sublime which Stephen Jarrell Williams depicts in the minimalist treasures of his haiku “light sky air.”

Happy New Year–

MK Chavez

January 2010 Poetry:

Gail Gray:  The Quintessential Language Of Bridges

Lisa Zaran: You Should Be So Lucky, Bamboo

Melissa Hansen: cut poem, sad boy, Dream of Dogs

Karl Koweski: the cats of Spain, blue futility, my book collection

Nathan Graziano: Three Scorpion Bowls

Jan Steckel: The Rose Grew Round The Briar, Pretty, Wild, My Jericho, Dance Of The Perseids

Kasandra Larsen: A CONVERSATION OVER A BOUQUET, DEFENSIVENESS, MEET MY TWIN SISTER, CLOSING YOUR EYES TO SEE BEHIND YOU

Ian C. Smith: Crayfish, Echidna, Robert Rauschenberg Is Dead

Burgess Stanley Needle: ONLY GOOD NEWS, COMMUNITY OF MEN, IT’S NOT DOMESTIC

Grant Bergland: FOR I HAVE PLAYED GUITAR HERO

Sergio Ortiz: Bandit Nights, Progress, In An Hour, Idem, Upon Receiving A Rejection Notice

Stephen Jarrell Williams: (four)

Stephen Jarrell Williams

Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night. He has lived most of his life in California.  His poetry has appeared in Anthology, Blue Collar Review, Byline Magazine, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Hawaii Review, Nerve Cowboy, Posey, and others.

Sergio Ortiz

Bandit Nights

I am tired
of this monotonous,
sedentary afternoon
in which long-faced gentlemen
vociferate their ignorance
of the Afghan war.

Dazed afternoon
under the scorching sun
watching a mangy dog
get up off the floor
unconcerned with the child
who just got shot
by its side.

I want to emigrate,
find nights sharpened by
the owl’s eye,
nights full of bandits
and consumptive whores.
I want to crumple up
like the wasp’s neurosis
on my bed.
Oh, outlet city,
how is it that my verses
are born in this ferocious
village? What empty lines
did I mistake for an oasis,
dark-dense people
full of shady passions?

Progress

Kill a tree,
un-frame the stars.

We are the grotesque
setting of unanswered
questions whose useless
voice is distorted by
the sterile wind.
And the dust continues
to pile up.

Pity people who break
over nothing.
Their moon is as white
as an owl’s blind eye.

In an Hour

Like everything that finds me,
damned spring,
you’ve set a price
on blooms of bugambilias
around the periphery
of my brow.
And here I am drawing on
conclusions.
Who cares if love comes
and goes in an hour?
Goddamned lying spring,
allow me to kiss you
as if a kiss were more
than just a kiss.

Idem

I see him as a dead tree
covered with clematis and ferns.
He laughs like an old shoemaker
entangled in own his shoestrings.
Nothing removes the moisture
in his eyes.  He’s a prairie
let loose on the street.
We are not the same,
yet we are.

Upon Receiving a Rejection Notice

Envy is the Lemonade
Countess, small cutesy
runaround with that oh, really,
yes-yes expression on her face
aristocrat macaques are
so fond of.

—Yes, Monsieur,
we love your rigadoon dance.
Your elegant word of the day,
volupté .  But in our presence,
please, don’t mention frogs.
They multiply in the mirrors
at the king’s court.

Sergio Ortiz has a B.A. in English from Inter-American University, and a M.A. in philosophy from World University. He has work forthcoming in Autumn Sky Poetry, The Smoking Poet, The Acentos Review, and Poesia. He lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Grant Bergland

FOR I HAVE PLAYED GUITAR HERO (after Lucia Perillo)

Whilst sitting in my overstuffed recliner,
Which is not done in other XBOX countries.
A kid across an ocean told me “You need stand. Always!”
I rattled off facts about Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, and Deep Purple.
Though I spoke with authority and cut him off,
a Singapore third grader beat me and yelled “You suck!” in perfect English.
Now they have long since put their games away
and gone to school or bed, I wonder
if they remember any more of me than the flood of curse
words flowing from my lips, or how I’d correct their English
between them yelling “Just hit red button stupid!”
and me saying they are too young to be watching “Desperate Housewives” and

how nobody in America still watches “Family Matters” or “Full House.”
I held their love of Erkel against them, refused to talk about the Olsen twins.
But how I envied how they sliced with the chainsaw in Gears of War,
their aim with the Barret .50 cal sniper rifle in Call of Duty 4,
recoiling them back to stunned confusion when I tell them I’m twice their age.
Then a kid from Micronesia yells “Then, you really suck!” while I die again.

I had to say, “I’ve got a job and I can’t play as much as you,”
I was such an idiot I even tried to apologize
for playing so badly, their replies held back as my character was
dismembered, disemboweled, burned, shot, stabbed, or beaten.
Watching the red neon blood splatter inside my television
forming into the words “YOU LOSE,” at last I understood

That I understood not one thing about their world, and
never would.  Near the end of my XBOX LIVE membership
I lost so much
they stopped playing with me.
They probably
pictured me sitting on a curb
wearing a too tight,
stained white t-shirt
stretched over a Cheetos gut
with my orange flecked,
gap-toothed mouth
open in permanent surprise.

But, I turned out to be normal among them, just another American
getting beaten at their own games, tolerated and humored
until replaced by someone who could play the little plastic guitar with
precise, frenzied fingers between trig homework and “Who’s the Boss?”
Then one day I played against a high school kid in Wyoming
I shredded him with my guitar, the hayseed said he was high so it didn’t count,
But still I yelled “You Suck!” in perfect English.

Grant Bergland has a B.A. in English from Arizona State University and teaches film in San Francisco. He is a graduate student at Cal State East Bay, where he was awarded the 2009 Associated Students Scholarship and won second prize in the 2009 Donald Markos poetry contest. More info at www.grantbergland.com

Burgess Stanley Needle

ONLY GOOD NEWS

Creeping charleys crouch near dwarf cactus
Coleus bow to jades
All bathed in fluorescence
as I sway and weave my stories
to faces that will never be smoother
Or radiate more hope.

Belvin, a Mescalero Apache, traveled
far from the home to water
my counter’s greenery.
He fails            every subject.
Always breaks                        eye contact.
You like my plants, I stated.
Yours?  One calm word hinted doubt.
Within the quiet canyons formed
by walls of books his gentle
voice colored a vision of weather.
There are no clouds in the west
a whisper to the jades.
A cool breeze settles on the hills
nodding to the cactus.
Every leaf, stalk and spine seemed poised
for his farewells:
Stay healthy, Ramon.
I’ll miss you, Señor Ruiz.
The world will know your story, Belvin
he says just grazing a blushing coleus.
Only then does he step
from shade to light
prepared to address
The sun
lonely for her lost children.

COMMUNITY OF MEN

He appeared one evening
Alongside the scent of kerosene
lanterns and groaning wooden carts
one quite old Japanese visitor
What were the unwritten laws of the village?
The English language side of his card read
Social anthropologist
Because he knew his death was imminent
he feared idle time
the waste of social amenities
The Thais were not impressed
Buddhism offered more than a few lifetimes
They knew he used his daughter
as a lure to connect            find a way in
a village’s delicate web
With my bumbling language skills
and what I prayed were polite
entreaties he got to meet the elders
Not the mayor or selectmen
Not the chief or the general
But the old men who kept the pulse
and guided commerce and all
graces without a scrap of paper
an oath or salary
The visitor wheedled and cajoled
The old men yawned
Rice was served and eaten
Beer was poured and finished
Glancing my way the visitor grimaced
Where can I            he used a familiar gesture
Everyone in the small hut rose as one
to troop outside      stand at parade rest
by a long row of banana trees
Spraying the greenery until the last man turned
Back inside they readily shared what they could
with the man an elder described as
being able to pee as long as an elephant

IT’S NOT DOMESTIC

It’s not Peets coffee I wish
To share nor common drags
From an herbal smoke
Patois of media suggests
We Lovers betray
our bond through joint acts
As if we all must
Inhale and grin
Sip and smile
Point is
it’s not domestic
As in you wash I dry
What I miss is
Art
The design formed by your line-of-sight
Changing my space from X2 to X3
Understand
It’s depth I yearn for
Unless you’re here
I’m trapped flat between
A billion quarks and oxygen
Coffee gulps and clouds of smoke
I’m incomplete
cool to touch
An existential being
I float on jazz
Swim through sound waves
Strung out like a high-C whistle
I call you
And call you
To make me real

Burgess Stanley Needle is a Tucson, Arizona poet. His work has appeared in Black Mountain Review, Zafusy, The Hiss Quarterly, Centrifugal Eye, Origami Condom, Kritya, Gutter Eloquence, Red Fez, Gloom Cupboard, and Iodine. He will happily respond to any e-mails: bbneedle@cox.net

Ian C Smith

Crayfish

We stripped, exposed, wet white flesh.
The primitive sea littered full plates
dribbled tasty through my beard
salt & pepper, glistening
Neptune randy eyeing the ripe moon’s
glitter on water, its allure
like your succulence.

Later, wave-riders of satiation
we lolled abed, spilt, drained
listening to the ocean’s pull & suck.
I thought of fathoms-deep creatures
their primaeval urges, like those crayfish
before we shucked, violated them
pleasured our tongues, licked them raw.

Echidna

Burn-off fires smoulder, a war zone scene
where he parks above the hazy harbour.
The door blows open when he releases it
like a terrified creature escaping.
He climbs out stiffly with the album
reviewing his daughter’s visit, things said.
A song from the C.D. echoes in his mind
..lying down on a cold black table..

An echidna waddles away from him
burrows urgently, spines quivering.
He sits with his thoughts in smoky sea air.
She had tapped her fingers, watching him.
You turn away from the living.
Emotion and memory drain him
the faded pages he begins to turn, clues.
We were a family, once.  You were our hero.

His daughter twice said, guilt trip
and, she adored you, three times
masking her accusations with smiles.
He peers closely, sniffing the past

the scents of youth filled with light
a time as unreachable as the horizon.
The echidna has almost buried itself
but its spines are still exposed.

Robert Rauschenberg is dead

Consumer glut glints in possibility
economy in his blood, fabric scraps
sewn to make his boyhood shirts.

Sculpture’s massive make-over
a stuffed eagle, goat, stop signs
red paint-soaked bed sheets, rocks, rope.

He feels sorry for those who can’t see.
Beauty glows right there in a Coke bottle
trash skips double as art suppliers.

John Cage and Jasper Johns admire him.
These artists link Pollock, de Kooning
with the rush of imagination in their wake.

This complex part-Cherokee Texan Steptoe
drinks heavily, thinks before he speaks
wary of his own subversive wit.

Audaciously combining mediums
he also gives away millions of dollars
recalling his first ready-made shirt.

The 1/4 mile or 2 Furlong Piece grows
even longer than its title, another chapter
in art’s what’s next? narrative.

A prolific renegade chevalier
succumbs to his old heart.
That former junk’s value appreciates.

Extant abstract-expressionists
their gallery dominance now past
feebly toss paint-stained berets aloft.

Ian C Smith’s work has appeared in Best Australian Poetry, Descant, Heat, Magma, The Malahat Review, &, Meanjin.  His latest book is Memory Like Hunger (Ginninderra).  He lives with his wife and their four sons in Victoria, Australia.

Kasandra Larsen

A CONVERSATION OVER A BOUQUET

Why do you want these? Silly.
Lilies are fragile and transient. Love
is more than a gesture that withers, a sum
of stems multiplied by exuberant blooms.

Listen to you.
I know they’re not practical, serious,
that even stolen from a garden they’re just
a token. But I want them.

Are they the children you can’t have?

Perhaps.

Okay, they turn soft faces to sunlight, spur
spontaneous smiles, run wild
along the roadside, beautiful because

they’re doomed to die.

Yes. At least their beauty doesn’t lie
like false syllables brought to dark coffins
while spoken, promises dropped
like hot stones and then broken.

They’ll only remind you we cycle and splinter.

That’s just the point of it all. Petals fall.

DEFENSIVENESS

Too sensitive, never really fashion
forward, I made a jacket out of it
and wore it everywhere. That piece
became my signature. Of course
it was black. But I added a twist,
embroidered the sleeves
with twining ivy the color of envy,
outlined the wide lapels with satin
thread that matches starlight
and adds a dash of hope. Even now
I like to wear it when I smoke.

MEET MY TWIN SISTER

The darker one, in shadow — she
would prefer not to speak, being
all body, aching skin, alerted hair,
averse to feeling a stitch of clothing
anywhere, certain that only tips
of fingers trailing down an arm,
resting briefly on a cheek, will do.
Her lips were made to kiss you. Or

if she hates you, wishes you dead, she
moves to muscle, becomes kick
and shove and stab instead. Either way
her dark eyes sparkle, telegraph screams,
satisfied moans. She’ll show you which
next time the three of us are left alone.

CLOSING YOUR EYES TO SEE BEHIND YOU

The past is anything but solid when it whispers, and the secret words
it sends have their own limits. Memory always fails to say more than a syllable
that misses subtle shades, ten thousand colors of confusion that led you

to this new date. You stand too formally, in black and white, forgetting
the old rules, that there were any, that you pushed against them harder
with the courage that came to a man condemned. Your anxieties,

collected since, just simmer. Now your mouth is dry, and when outstretched
your left hand shakes. Years that fell as fast as rain left bitter trackmarks
in their wake, stale kisses on your cheek. If you could fold the time together,

get point A to meet point D, the phone would ring and you would recognize
her voice saying your name, just like that yesterday you want to label red. But
it was turning at the edges even then, thin, scorched like parchment and

tea-tinted, words in cursive quickly fading. Now you fill them in with ink
that sleep erases, and your pillow in the morning shows a strand of long
black hair. Slipped underneath, a silver ring you think you used to wear.

Kasandra Larsen’s poetry has appeared in various literary journals, including Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry, 100 Poets Against the War, Babylon Burning: 9/11 Five Years On, and Osprey Journal. Her work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2007.

Jan Steckel

The Rose Grew Round the Briar

How do your red pubic hairs
end up on the window sill,
my black ones on the crown moldings?
Do you do even weirder things in the bathroom
than I thought? Do curly hairs waft on
hot-air currents from bathroom drain to ceiling?
Do they hitch a ride on a bath towel,
and flip free heavenward
when you snap it at my ass?
I found one in the pantry, curled lasciviously

around a piece of high-fiber cereal,
another on the TV remote.
I don’t want to think about that one too hard.
I lie in bed and stare at two high on the wall
above our heads, a black and a red.
Are they having an out-of-booty experience?
When we die, will they form a true-lover’s knot,
and float up higher and higher?

Pretty, Wild

I felt my DNA unscrew
when she walked into a room.
I think it was her hair,
Farrah Fawcett seventies wild
like polished mahogany driftwood.

Maybe it was the way
her smile spread slowly
across her face
while her eyes stayed amber,
deep as fossils.

It could have been her shelf
of Russian books,
how she could wire anything
to work, her mastery of
electricity and men.

I wanted to hold open doors,
push her up against the wall,
earn a living for her and her wiener dog,
hold her wrists down on the bed,
dance at our wedding.

Instead I showered so long
her wallpaper curled off the walls.
I kicked the dog out of our bed.
I brought her tidbits
she yelled we couldn’t afford.

I hope she’s happy once again.
I hope she’s still pretty,
her hair still wild,
and she still treats her dog
as if it’s her child.

My Jericho

One good blow job
and you came
tumbling down.

Dance of the Perseids

Meteor shower tonight. No use looking.
Couldn’t see it here against the city glow.
One August in the mountains, his arm
around her, they wished on falling stars
till they ran out of wishes.

Cat’s on top of the TV ‘cause it’s warm,
tail hanging over the screen.
Push his tail up, sit down –
few minutes later that tail falls back,
blocking So You Think You Can Dance.

He knew he could dance when he twirled her
with a light touch of his hand,
turn of the wrist. She spun into him,
spooled out again like a spindle.
She’s gone.
All he hears
is Vietnamese cuties upstairs
playing Dance Dance Revolution
thundering over his head
like to knock the plaster down.

Why should he crack his own ceiling
pounding with his Louisville Slugger?
Baseball days are all past, too.
Just him and her ancient crazed kitty
that yowls all night.

Fix himself Cheez Whiz on Cheetos.
Push the cat’s tail up again.
Ease onto the La-Z-Boy.
Not too long till his love and he
will be Dancing with the Stars.

Jan Steckel’s fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks, was the winner of the 2008 Gertrude Press Fiction Chapbook Award. Her work has won numerous awards and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Find out more at http://www.jansteckel.com

Nathan Graziano

Three Scorpion Bowls

Scorpion Bowl #1: At the table beside us, a young couple sucks down their Scorpion Bowl through long red straws. It’s May, and we’re in a Japanese restaurant where Christmas Muzak pipes through the ceiling. My wife and I sip iced teas and try to keep our kids from impaling each other’s eyes with chopsticks.

Scorpion Bowl #2: The young man moves closer to the young girl and rolls up his sleeve to show her his new tattoo. “It’s symbolic of stuff,” he says. The young girl tosses back her head and sings, The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful, as my son plunges his hand in the seaweed salad. “Dragon boogers,” he yells. I order another iced tea.

Scorpion Bowl #3: The young girl, her voice rising, says to the young man: “If I’m still able to walk after we finish drinking, I’ll totally fuck you tonight.” The young man lets the straw drop from his lips and reaches for his wallet. As our children are momentarily occupied with the exotic fish in a wall-sized tank, my wife nudges my shin with her foot. “Do you remember when we used to be like them?” she asks. After seven years, two kids and countless near-separations, I nod. “I’ll totally fuck you tonight,” I say and show her my tattoo.


More of Nathan Graziano’s work can be found on www.nathangraziano.com

Karl Koweski

the cats of Spain

the cats of Spain
drink saucers of Irish whiskey
ears attuned to the
moonlight serenades
of the worshipful
communing along the mahogany

the cats of Spain
prowl on padded feet
down through the centuries
maddening aloof

their tails swish in concert
with the pumping hearts
of those who love them

the cats of Spain
remain untouched by petting hands

feline spines arch
with the promise of pleasure
mischievous cats’ eyes glowing
with an abundance of lives

the cats of Spain
travel America’s chaotic corridors
from Omaha to Alabama
gypsy souls and harmonica paws
follow the music on the breeze

blue futility

seven hundred miles
south of Wrigley Field

on a baseball diamond
atop the second
highest mountain
in Alabama

my five year-old son
crouches near
the third base bag

his glove hovers
an inch from the dirt
and he’s ready for anything
so long as
it’s a softly rolling
ground ball

batting gloves jut
out of his back pocket,
a wad of Big League Chew
hyperextends his cheek

he looks like
a little ball player
except for one thing

“Jared!
where’s your Cubbies cap?”

“no!”

“where’s your Cub’s lid, boy?”

“I hate the Cubbies“

“put on your Cub’s hat
or I’m gonna jump kick you”

“Cubbies suck
I like the Cardinals”

we stand diametrically opposed
across a baseball chasm
wider than the
280 miles
between St Louis and Chicago

and if he’s better off
breaking the cycle now
before chronic defeat
gets its hooks into him
I’ll never admit it

my book collection

I like to think
I have one of the
largest privately owned
book collections in town

perhaps not that impressive
considering I live in a land
populated by folks who
take greatest pride in
their accumulated
college football memorabilia

but I love my wall of books

my wife despises them
“all they do is sit there
what use are they if you’ve
all ready read them?”

but… they’re mine…
I own them…

lying on my bed
surrounded by thousands of books
calmness descends

I ascribe to the Thomas Jefferson
belief in literary universality
as long as it prescribes to fiction

my collection is like your collection
except a hundred times better
and without all the boring authors
name checked by Bukowski
and wonderfully devoid of
over-rated Beatnik writers

my book collection
is better than your book collection
except
you can probably see your books
whereas my collection is obscured

by shower curtains hung by the wife
who believes books look tacky
while shower curtains across an
entire bedroom wall defines elegance

Karl Koweski is a displaced Chicagoan now living on top of a mountain in Alabama.  His chapbook of smut, Low Life, is available from www.zygoteinmycoffee.com, where he is also the writer of the monthly column, “Observations of a Dumb Polack.”

Melissa Hansen

cut poem

when I think
of you

I am happy

anxious

like
a
hurricane
or
a
flood

wreaking the
land with
my sea

doing
as
I
please

laying
down

when I think
of
you

sad boy

my ass against
the glass
of the desk
a bruise appears
a day later
purple and
beautiful
a story a mark
of our
breaking
love.

or something like
that.

I wonder why
my belly aches
hurts
the glass
pressing
against me
creates
tiny crevices
in my skin
the glass breaks
when I touch it
like a sad boy
you touch him
he breaks.

dream of dogs

there was a
dream of
dogs

dogs with
blackened
slickened
oiled
skin
and
paws

dogs
from
the
mud

they came
from the
trees
and had
a look

I lay on
the chair

around I
looked

and dark
it was
as it
was night

the ancient
dogs
were not
to bite

but hide
behind
the trees
at night

their
slickened
dirty
paws

someone needs
to dream of
dogs

their dirty
pretty
puffy
paws

why not
it be me

Melissa Hansen lives in San Francisco with her husband, where she writes and works at a lot of libraries. She is the author of little beasts, a collection of poetry, and her machine, a fiction collection. You can visit Melissa at www.melissahansen.net

Lisa Zaran

You Should Be So Lucky

If you were my husband, I’d brush
each moment of illusion off the bed
like a housemaid with a broom.
Let no ocean begin to sound unless
you and I were already warm inside
our hotel room drinking wine and showing
our vulnerable affections.

If you were my husband, I’d treat you fragile
as the ten feet of space between vehicles
rushing 75 on the highway because the universe
is in that space,
can change from exotic to dead in a second.
Let no delta Blues pluck a chord unless
the close crop of your dark hair lit up
my features like an afternoon walk of consolation
and counting stars we know are there
but can not see.

If you were my husband, I’d name you honey.
It would be my chief pleasure to lie in your arms
and swirl my fingers around in your chest hair
while you spoke about an ex you thought you loved
yet deceived you and I would despise her
and everything she is and I would ask you:
want me to kick her ass?

Which would make you smile and kiss the top
of my burning head and shake me with your bear paws.
If you were my husband, I would love you
with a fresh start every second of every day
and just to increase upon our luck, I would promise
never to deceive you and I would get a sheet of paper
notarized which read: She will always remain pretty.
Then you wouldn’t have to worry about me getting fat
or old or frumpy even after having twelve children
that all looked like you.

If you were my husband, this nest of anxiety
would disappear and I could stuff all my sadness
back into the suitcase of my heart.
Like all great marriages that last beyond the grave
we will be lost to the world but not each other,
surrounded by fragments of light and star,
the shape and color of your eyes.

When people ask me: so why aren’t you two married yet?
I gesture with my middle finger that we are.
If you were my husband, things would be easier.
I wouldn’t have to kill other women with my looks
or defend the great institution that we are going to become.
I wouldn’t have to feel like I work very hard
taming your thoughts- that great deal of poetry
that keeps falling out of your head. Things would
be like a sentimental love story and I the heroine
blowing kisses on your nipples and pressing
the little gold weight of my body against yours.

Bamboo

Ending where you begin, shapeless,
nestled in the fur of your body, I
cannot find my skin.

Why ask you where I am.
Over the park, birds string-lace
from limb to limb.

There are instances I find my hands,
rare occasions my voice cries
out from a throat,
I thought was yours.

Lisa Zaran is a poet, essayist and author of six collections including The Blondes Lay Content and the sometimes girl, the latter of which was the focus of a year long translation course in Germany.  She is the founder and editor of the online poetry journal Contemporary American Voices .

Gail Gray

The Quintessential Language of Bridges

The bridge, impatient for movement
Leapt from the riverbank
Arced high, deft as a diver
or acrobat.  I rode

the center grip, appalled.
Bridges are for crossing.
It decided to cross the void
jealous of the freedom

of downflow,
Sensing my fear
cormorant whispers whistled
through knot holes.

Bridge denied the other side
satisfaction; decided
to ride memories of longing.
I went down with the ship,

My old life whistled past.
Bridge became swan.
I lost hold, irreversible
invitation to vertical realities.

I tasted the Seine, measured
descent by drought scars
digesting the depth of tears.
Water planet rulers

hold no quarter for children
dressed in denial.
Chesapeake Bay:  bridge as causeway
straddles the tides

begs my car tires for a kiss
the entryway to all
banished emotions
fathoms as favors
remaindered from the Barnacle King

and Pearl Queen offered
octaves of cello,
three heartbeats stashed
in a seashell stolen

from the Baltic,
a sacrament -
prelude to breaking
the surface.

Gail Gray is the author of three books of poetry. Her latest book, Eye on the Universe is upcoming from Differentia Press. She is the owner of Shadow Archer Press and the editor of Fissure, a magazine of experimental art and writing.