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GRACE AND REVOLUTION

presented by

Martha Jo Kreiner

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GRACE AND REVOLUTION

BY

Martha Jo Kreiner

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English

1994

ABSTRACT
GRACE AND REVOLUTION
BY

Martha Jo Kreiner

Ordered chronologically by date of the first firm
draft, this collection of poems traces the broadening of my
artistic considerations. The themes of the resilience of
women resistant to domination, the magic to be found in the
mundane and usual, and the conjoining of the spiritual/dream
realm with the everyday remain primary throughout. An
increasingly meticulous attention to word choice for sound,
potentially ambiguous meanings, and contributions to tone,
however, gives resonance to later poems. In addition, the
later poems employ families of images such that a pattern is
more likely to emerge. And finally, there exists a growing
regard for the ordering of the material in the poem and its

effect on the unfolding of meaning.

Copyright by
MARTHA J0 KREINER

1994

For Stacie,
My First,

the Original Audience

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Among those who have encouraged the completion of this
manuscript, Professor Anita Skeen sweeps the awards for my
gratitude. Her mentoring, maintenance of rigorous
expectations, singular attention to my work, and comments
attesting to the actual existence of progress within it have
made the project invaluable to my development as a beginning
poet.

I would also like to express appreciation to the many
women in my life--for midnight coffee, insisting that I
shoot pool for an evening, tolerating and understanding my
need to chain myself to my desk when I might usually be
lounging in good company on the couch, telling me whopping
good stories, cooking me weekly meals, swimming a length
ahead of me during my first full mile, and coming up to my
study for a smoke when I most needed to know I was not in it

alone. Thank you.

PREFACE

I used to think of resistance

as organized and somewhat refined,
but at twenty-two years of age,

I can think of only two instances
in my life when, in a moment of battle,
I said precisely what I meant

to say and didn't come up

with a better version later.

At this rate,

I can reasonably expect only five
more such episodes the rest

of my lifetime.

This could be why I write:

at least

I have the advantage of drafts.
Perhaps true moments

of courage are always awkward,
and it is in those spaces

without words that imagination

leaps through and we do something

(not a stanza break)
vi

we'd never thought before,
exit a conversation,

or summon the voices of allies
and stay.

Perhaps I'm creating
occasions for eloquence

a bit more often

than every eleven years.
Maybe

that's what most art does,
adds grace

to revolution.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Under the Bed 3

Common Faith: A Creed 5
Once Again, You Are Picking Beans at Midnight
Cultivation of a Heroine 9
Claiming Her Due 12
Sustenance 15

Featured Artist 17

The Occasional Garden 20
Lure 23

Pitching In 25

Creed, Revisited 28

Amazons at Art's Bar; Or, What We Do

When We're Not Polishing Our Breast Plates

Trailing After Her 32

Wasting No Time 34

Whistle Poem for My Brother 36

Design 38

Armed to the Teeth 40

A Woman Writes a Letter to Her Father 42
Preparing for Revolutionary Community 44

February 1994--National Snack Food Month
(and Black History Month) 47

viii

The Muse Is a Big-Boned Woman 48
Requisite Props 50

In the Months before the Move 52
Picnic at Mt. Hope Cemetery 53
Pisces Playing Guitar 55

Letter from My Outrageous Self 57

Marla Sharks Around 59

ix

INTRODUCTION

Ordered chronologically by date of the first firm
draft, this collection of poems traces the broadening of my
artistic considerations. The themes of the resilience of
women resistant to domination, the magic to be found in the
mundane and usual, and the conjoining of the spiritual/dream
realm with the everyday remain primary throughout. An
increase, though, in available poetic tools manifests itself
in the augmentation, by the final poem, of options I
exercise to make a piece of writing layered and resonant
enough to be an effective poem.

In my early work, structure and form, among other
elements, are more of an accident than an intentional
choice. The struggle, at first, is to string together
enough interesting images just to produce something other
than prose. Practicing as rigorously as is necessary to
complete a thesis, however, has deepened my understanding of
figure in poetry. I have begun to ask the hard questions:
Why this image? Do these images function together in a way
that enriches the poem or complicates it? Why these images
in this order? Why these images in, for example, a letter
poem and not in a catalogue poem? How does the space on the

page contribute to or detract from the poem's revelation?
l

Have I chosen the most effective tense? Does each word
merit entry into the poem because it moves it in some
overall direction, or is the word just holding a place?

That I begin to grapple with some of these problems in
later poems is evidenced by an increasingly meticulous
attention to word choice for sound, potentially ambiguous
meanings, and contributions to tone. In addition, the poems
employ families of images such that a pattern is more likely
to emerge. And finally, there exists a growing regard for
the ordering of the material in the poem and its effect on
the unfolding of meaning.

My hope is not only to reproduce an experience for the
reader but also to evoke in her a sense of movement, as if
the poem has impressed her in such a way that she is
differently situated for having read it. To be in a
position to create these kinds of poems, I must allow them
the time to make themselves and their particular insights
known to me. The writing of this collection has helped me
develop a better sense of the discipline requisite to that

slow-going but transformative process.

Under the Bed

I wasn't old enough to know

how to work the matches

when you scorched black patches

into the mattress.

The angel hair underside

flashed outward in circles.

I slapped out the flames,

my hand blistery,

and I wiped my sweatshirt

sleeve across my eyes.

But you were giggling

seven-year-old wildness,

ablaze with cowlicks

and grass stains.

Mouth dry as cellophane,

I gulped again and again,

my face suspended on knots of hair

crimped in the box spring.

Common Faith: A Creed

Doing tarot

to settle on a grad school,

suspending dimes in frost on the window

(a wish for every one that sticks),

I scan lecture halls for left-handers--

in grade school, we all cut

with backwards scissors.

I whistle bits of hymn when driving,

splotches of melody

minus the god part:

I am post-Catholic.

I guess the next lines of ballads,

a free verse poet predicting the rhyme.

If the first gum ball

from the machine is green,

I will twist a penny for a second.

I write in pen.

I always buy Marlboros in a box,

and I never dance in anything

but black.

Once Again, You Are Picking Beans at Midnight

For Kelly

You burst into the dim back yard,
baseball cap strapped backwards,
bangs sprouting from the gap

above the clasp.

You slip,
kneeling,
to the underside of the netting

tacked from fence to ground.

Clipboard,

badge number,

parking tickets,

the boxy props of your p.m. job
drop away from you

as the moist glisten of good work

pools in the folds of your skin.

It is 2 a.m. before you boil them

with bacon

(not a stanza break)

8

and an unconscionable measure of salt,
but it is not the boiling

I will remember:

it is you

shimmering among those stalks,

the slim figures of beans

brushing your ears.

And your face

agleam like the seeds within,
sheathed in the moon's

blue pod.

Cultivation of a Heroine

For Dr. Useem

It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody

long before they leave you.

Toni Morrison

Ruth and I spent weeks that summer
around the wide table in her dining room,
mostly manilla, labels, and stamps

on my end, letters, manuscripts,

and drafts on hers.

It was my job to organize her research

and her thoughts.

But things changed the day she found out
there were crucial things

I did not know.

She'd asked me about my favorite flower,
and I told her I knew the names

of none.

10

She pulled two pair
of work gloves from a drawer in the kitchen,
handed me a folded bag,

and walked out the back door.

I followed her for a single turn
around her garden.

She tugged thistles from beneath a few
among the waves of flowers,

and I held the sack,

parting the edges as she turned

to place each weed

in the bottom of the bag.

She had me repeat their names:
zinnias, cut out petals

pasted on stems,

lilies, like prairie grass,

leaning and thirsty for months on end,
but bursting suddenly and in unison
into the orange and yellow

chorus of the sun.

11

And cabbage--

which before I'd only known

as flecks of purple in salad--

the vegetable that thrives on frost,
fierce and upright as sheet metal
and sturdy past the first snow,

violet bloom atop a stalk.

12

Claiming Her Due

Granted, April Schuldt wasn't everyone's idea of the
perfect candidate for Homecoming Queen at Memorial
High School in Eau Claire, Wis. The 17-year-old is
unmarried and five months pregnant . . . . She
dresses in dark, baggy layers with combat boots and
lots of rings. She prefers dark eye makeup and
purple-black lipstick and shaves her bright red hair
up the sides . . . . [Even though] she won the
election fair and square by more than 30 votes . . .
[s]ome school officials decided the punky and pregnant
April could not properly represent Memorial's 1800
students . . . . Tipped off by a friend that she'd
been robbed, April confronted the school's principal,

Charles Zielin, on Friday, Oct. 2--Homecoming Day.

People Weekly

I have tried to imagine
the principal

seated alone and in state
at his desk,

sorting creased slips

of paper,

April's pile swelling.

13

How he must have cringed
when the glare

of her bald patch of head
shone on the lens

of his mind's eye.

How the delicate muscles
around his mouth twitched
as he envisioned her,
sparkling beneath a tiara,
eyes bold

above a quarter inch

of black.

How he surely weighed

the matter

in sensible principle fashion
to decide

she was not fit,

her unwed body

too round

to be fit.

14

And then

I think of April:

her procession

weeks later through the hall,
wool cape billowing

in the breeze of her stride,

the thud of her boots
on institutional tile.
How she thumped

on his door

with a closed fist.

How she swirled

into the room

all hung with plaques
and dangled the question

from her indigo lips.

15

Sustenance

For the WOman Who Wraps Gifts

at the Shop in Sparrow Hospital

When I sneak

off the eighth floor
down to your shop,
you do not whisper

in pale hushes.

You know that extra slamming
of the register drawer
will crimp none

of my papery veins,

that the rumble

of the store vacuum
will not deepen

the slate creases

beneath my eyes.

My underwear a blue smear

through my gown, I am draped

(not a stanza break)

16

around my I.V. pole.
One of three wheels

at the bottom

has me fighting a lean

to the left.

I have snagged some tubing
on a shelf of glass,

but even now

you do not wither

to a mime.

Partly, I browse,

but mostly I gorge

my inside ear (stray
from my diet of liquids),

so that later,

your voice

a textured grip

in the porcelain stillness
of my room,

I hear you talking

about my find.

As you fold, then fasten
the colored paper,

it becomes a gift.

17

Featured Artist

For Kelly, the Neon Sculptor, on the Occasion

of the Week Preceding Her First Gallery Showing

For weeks you've ground

your teeth at night,

flecks of enamel

lining the troughs of your mouth
so that you wake up

thirsty.

Your intestinal tract
is a long cave of stone,
food jolting along the path

in starts and stops.

Even now, when your work
costs you bodily,
you do not call yourself

an artist.

18

There are no legends

of brilliant and troubled
benders of glass

stumbling back through time,
shut up in a room,

hunched over a flame,
swallowing exhaust or pills

or pride.

I already have a genre,
a slick sign swinging on delicate chains
from the vaulted ceilings

of bookstores.

But you work

in a recent medium,
teetering always

on the edge of glitz,

wary of waxing '803.

For you,

there is no designated muse
and only one book with pictures
in the university library

of art.

19

And yet you work.

You work till bags hang
heavy and sullen

from your eyes,

until your shoulders

are knotted,

until you singe your lashes

on the blue flame.

20

The Occasional Garden

For Kelly

We call it a patio,
these few hunks of concrete,

but we both know better.

This is where I sit past midnight
when gardening occurs to you,
like an overdue dentist appointment,

in the middle of late night TV.

This is not a place

out of The Gardener's Diary

I surprised you with on a grim day,
which you both treasure

and never use.

You tried for lettuce
but the dogs found
that patch of earth
coolest for lounging,
snacked on carrots,
tugged young onions

right from the ground.

21

In June,

you planted sunflowers

all along the garage wall.
Beneath the clearing

in the backyard branches,
a single one nods her head
to you now, in the dark.
The wafer of daily sun

sustains her frame only.

This is not a fenced off

plot, vegetables in rows.

Your herbs

hang in bundles

from drawer handles, cupboards,
the coat rack.

Inside the house

flecks of oregano

drop onto our hair.

You never water by daylight,
and I never saunter out here alone
for a smoke, a breather,

some iced tea.

22

Not a project, pastime,

or hobby,

it is something we remember
from time to time,

you wrestling a hose

and a flashlight,

me listening for water

on the leaves.

23

Lure

For Kelly

We are fishing

from a pier

by the headlights

of my Toyota.

You have knocked

the scissors

off the dock

and sever your line

with the tip

of a cigarette.

Angling to one side

to keep light

on my still bobber,

you tip the bait can

24

towards shore,

pinching the dirt

for worms.

You turn again

to face the lake.

Backs strapped by light,

leather glinting,

our shadows

arc across the water,

drawn swords.

Pitt

For

Cor
ta;

bee

to

In

ri

SC

1!
di
pi
th
in
as)

film

25

Pitching In

For Kelly

Councilwoman Alfreda

taps at our door,

bearing hemlines, a handbag,
and a citation

for our ill-kempt lawn.

In the house

I am folding towels
right side out,

so the tags won't show,
our linen closet

a display shelf from Sears.

When I moved in,

I washed every vase

in your deco collection,
dumping their contents--
pictures, action figures,
the deed to your house--
in a box,

asked you to sort

through it some time.

26

I designated
a junk drawer
because where I am from

you have only one.

And I rigged a wire basket

to the mail slot

on the door.

The dogs had been sampling the mail,
select envelopes

ripped and smudged.

Outside,

Alfreda is pointing

to the drive--
mattresses, a dresser,
dry branches.
Irreverent,

you drop your cigarette
at her feet,

slide your hat backwards.
Much later,
you will call me outside,

to hear the manual

(not a stanza break)

27

mower in the rain,

the intimate snipping at 2 am.

And when we come back
in the house to dry off
I will pitch

the plastic wrap

from a pack of Marlboros

into a wide-necked vase.

28

Creed, Revisited

I believe in Post-it notes

and errands,

that being sick is the only
acceptable excuse

for my not doing something.

I believe in pulling my weight,
in surprise gifts for no

special occasion,

that I should have hobbies,

that smoking, folding laundry,

and sending prompt thank you notes
do not count as such,

though I do these things

with steadfast

regularity.

I believe in the hand

and homemade,

that a promise is a promise,
that brownies,

merit badges, and tights

exemplify my early life.

29

I believe in decorating
for birthdays, that I should watch
the news, that phone messages

should include a date and a time.

I believe that once a week

is often enough for most
anything, in having gladiolas

in the house, in taking only one

newspaper from the dispenser.

I believe in oracles--
Bazooka fortunes, dreams,
tarot, and graffiti--

that you can know someone
before having met her.

I believe in the conjuring
power of the imagination,

the creative potential of lists.

30

Amazons at Art's Bar;
Or, What We Do When We're Not Polishing

Our Breast Plates

For the Lesbian Avengers

Helaine is telling stories
about Virginia again,
slapping her palms down

and dropping her jaw.

She stops to sneak

a pack of Marlboros

into her lap,

rips off the miles,

pockets them.

She's saving for the Dirt-Jak

and a sleeping bag.

Emily talks building codes
to Kelly, and the healing

nature of the color blue.

She's into vibing

and power tools.

On her way home,

(not a stanza break)

31

she'll pull over

to lug a roadside cinder block
into her truck,

some wet lumber,

maybe a near-dead raccoon.

Drawing one knee up to her chest,
swinging her chair back

on only two legs,

Kelly mocks gravity,

fakes choking

on a toothpick,

then smirks in my direction.
At closing,

she'll invite us over

for some home shopping

and the couch,

saying nervous breakdowns
aren't so bad

with the right company

and snacks.

32

Trailing After Her

For Kelly, at a Time

of Unsettling Change

You leave early for work,

and I wake after you're gone.

Your few flicks of ash
twitch on the bathtub ledge
like dry flies on a sill

when the storms come off in May.

On the dinette table,
splints of toothpick

huddle in a pile.

A nest of twisted newspaper

falls from your chair.

As if you litter your path

to find your way back.

I imagine you
blowing through the streets

in your rust and blue Nova,

33

leaves swarming behind you
like bands of young insects,
wings still thick with resin

and hungry.

I begin with the toothpick,
sweep it into my palm,

gather newspapers into a pile.

I make my way by your trail,
an ant hastening to its queen
with food, along a thinning

ribbon of smell.

34

Wasting No Time

For rhu at 78

You like the ginkgo tree

because she wastes no time.

In fall, she drops her leaves

like undressing in a cold bedroom,

not all that changing of color

and then a few wisps of leaf a day,

like a pale woman fainting

limb to limb in a silent movie.

On your final night, you'll stay up late

with popcorn and Mary Pickford.

Leaning back in a starched

pantsuit, you'll prop your heels

on the couch's arm. You'll cut to black

with a bowl of snacks on your chest,

35

like the ginkgo in November,

still clenching fruit in her palm.

You, like the ginkgo, will pause

as if merely interrupted.

36

Whistle Poem for My Brother

For MJK

Waiting in the cafe

for a blue-eyed friend,

a man behind me

whistles something similar
to our old call,

and I remember you,
buck-toothed and corduroyed,
before you could pronounce

the R in my name.

In the grocery store,
lagging aisles behind

Mom and the cart,

I shuffled through dairy

and you whisked through toys,
no walking past every

aisle to find each other.
Instead, that whistle,

the long exhale

through determined lips,

(not a stanza break)

if a." "gun v- w

37

how we made our way

to each other's sound,

both listening with heads turned,
over registers and Musak,
snarling hair and cowlicks

pushed away from the homing ear.

I always saw you first,

fists crammed in your pockets,
plodding backwards

so you would not miss me

from behind.

You'd dart your head

right way around

to check for obstructions

in your path, and I'd whistle
a final time.

Doubled up, we could not

be lost. In tandem

we'd yell for Mom

to please meet her party

in lane seven,

the brief, loud unison

of brother and sister,
wailing in their uppermost

registers.

38

Design

For Kelly, the Neon Artist,

after Losing Her Shop

Last summer,

your art partner
loaded a truck,
made off

with the manifold,
the torches,

even your portfolio.
A series of lawyers
slapped you with,
"Possession

is nine-tenths."

For months

you woke from naps,
your face a mask
of sweat

and matted hair.
Just warming soup,

you stockpiled dishes,

(not a stanza break)

39

the sink a fortress.
In a friend's shop
you lit cigarettes
with a blowtorch.
For everything,

the big guns.

Yet November

has you sketching again,
on overdue bills,

the telephone book,
remembering the subtle
power of outlines.

No equipment,

no money to buy any,

but your eye for contour,
swollen from the grit storm
of rage, opens

to late fall designs.
Nubbed branches

suggest leaves,

a square plot of field,

the crop.

40

Armed to the Teeth

Thirty-two bones to pick
morning and night, my father
flosses twice daily, his bite

sure, clean, exacting.

Lately, though, I am dreaming

of unsturdy teeth:

In a ritual of hygiene

I bend over the sink,

lift the bristles to my lips.
Before I can brush, a shower
of crowns, a clicking spill

of enamel drops from my mouth.

Nightmares of teeth loose

indicate death. I have read this.

Yet, in the absence

of any binding evidence--

scars, fingerprints, birthmarks--
it is the teeth they use

to match corpses to names, return

children's bodies to the father.

41

Unmarked, I will clear
that hot, white mouth,
stony cusps crumbling

in the bone of my jaw.

42

A Woman Writes a Letter to Her Father

man of books and little time,
of equations and theoretics,
professor-man with a mind
for only the abstract,
writes to say she's leaving
because he's studying

the wrong thing,

asks him to lift his head,

for once, from the book,

weight of knowledge in his lap,
to turn his head

around the wide, cushioned back

of his chair

to see her mother
in the doorway of the house,
headed out, and this woman,

his daughter, a few steps ahead.

43

Father, she says, Dad,

look at the lives

of those you say you love the most,
your own life. Study hard.
Acquaint yourself with the damage

you have done.

Not an ultimatum but an invitation.
Not an act of pity but one of faith
that he could--

there's an outside chance--

prevent the almost certain

if-then.

For Helaine

44

Preparing for Revolutionary Community

If I am different from you in some way,
I will not put myself in your shoes.
Instead, I will remain in my own

and determine on whose necks

my footholds lie. I will find

some other kind of grounding.

I will no longer believe

that a ceremony requires a budget.

I will honor someone

by being singularly attentive

to the words she speaks,

as if she could be speaking to me,

as if I have it in me to respond to her
with respect and integrity, as an ally.

I will invoke my power of audience.

About history, I will discover what mine
has really been, what has been done

in whose name, in my own name,

and whether or not this is the name

I will continue to go by,

(not a stanza break)

45

whether or not I have a choice.

I will also uncover those heroines
whose stories have been blotted out,
because how they lived, what they taught
and learned,

was simple and complicated

and revolutionary,

because revolution has been happening
for some time now, and I could use

some examples, some advice,

some encouragement.

I will quit expecting my due

and start earning it. I will find ways
of sorting out what I deserve

from what has accrued to me

by circumstances of birth.

Whatever I do not need I will hand over
to those who have more just methods

of distribution.

will not expect always
to be able to describe
the community I mean

by revolutionary. I will commit myself

(not a stanza break)

46

to making mistakes, though I do expect
to be held accountable,

to be making my way to new ground,

where I'll recognize,

in the moments I am there,

that this is the place I've been meaning
to get to. I will act

as if this place exists,

regardless.

47

February, 1994--National Snack Food Month

(and Black History Month)

Chocolate chips,
chips and dip,

potato chips.

Chip off the old block.
Block the door.
Auction block.

Blue chip stock.

Block them out.
Don't go off the block.
Knock their blocks off.

White them out.

(BIG BLOCK LETTERS:)

Cash in my chips.
Hand over the cash.
Chisel away

at the chip

on my shoulder:
shoulder some blame

for a change.

48

The Muse Is a Big-Boned Woman

who totes no quiver

of shimmering arrows,

no sequined evening bag

for her pinch of enchanted dust,

not so much as a wand even.

She is a big-boned woman
with a fierce jaw and a ruler,
advanced in years

and unfailing in health--

partisan of practice,
disciple of rigor,
believer

in regular exercise.

Pen in hand at my desk,
posture decidedly prim,
I wait for a ration of wisdom,

even some direction.

49

Instead, I feel her suddenly
behind me, leaning in.
She monitors my progress,

the air pinched and dustless.

TI“: It‘m

50

Requisite Props

For Irma Horvath--Murdered March, 1994

The episodes blare by
on my private, nightly screen.
He stalks me in installments.

This is a serial killing:

Snuffed in blue light,
I wake in a room

filmed with smell.

Or:

Mouth flailing

like a flag

with an eyelet ripped,
my scream curls away

like smoke.

Or:

The black and blue light
of the moon flicks
through his eye

like a coin tossed

for a petty decision.

51

Each morning, I wake to the paper,
the details of another woman's death,
recognize an item from a dream:

the headboard, the time of day,

the color of her blouse.

If I could just slip

into the scene in the off moments,
like a member of the stage crew,

I would plant the principal

a discreet defense:

a phone, some knitting needles
in an out of the way drawer,

a cameo--relief of her lover.

52

In the Months before the Move

You collect boxes like mementos:
there must be enough of them

to contain everything. You wonder

what to give away, try remembering
the last time you cooked with cardamon,

whether you even know its smell.

On the one hand, there's sealing
that jar and others against spilling,

masking tape hermetic around the lids,

then the cross-state trek with spices
you can't even recall the dish for.

On the other hand,

there's being without them.
Like a dictionary of only the known

words, the essentialist spice rack

inhibits the palate--no capsicum,
coriander, or fennel to stir the tongue.

You decide to take the cardamon.

53

Picnic at Mt. Hope Cemetery

For the Woman Who Was

Never My Lover

We yank

the blanket

taut across

the ground,

stake our claim:

No burying

for the duration

of our meal.

We lay out

our fare among

the oldest stones,

impressions smooth

from the wind's

sweeping hand.

54

Nappy after

strawberries,

we rest,

almost nestle

among

the well-mourned.

55

Pisces Playing Guitar

For Kelly with Her Six String

The air too thin

a medium for blues,

you tilt your head,
dunk your face

in the phantom sea.

Listening to riffs

in both worlds,

you check for sharps

with a brine-filled ear.

The thumbing of bass notes--

poofs in a tidal

pool as mollusks

hit bottom.

56

The strumming of chords--

underwater wind
rustling in kelp
which sways

like submerged women's

hair.

57

Letter from My Outrageous Self

Inhibition exacts a toll on art.

Marla

My Darling Martha,

Spend, for once,

on credit.

Take a friend out
for a lavish meal--

pasta, cheese, olives.

Start a rumor

you wish were true.

Wear something suede,
a raspberry dinner

jacket, say,

in which, even you

could wax sultry.

58

Insist on wine,

a table in the corner.

Read to her,
over melting sorbet,

from your love poems.

59

Marla Sharks Around

The partial or complete . . . obscuring
of one . . . body by another .

A disgrace . . .

The American Heritage Dictionary

on eclipse

Windows of smoky glass
snuff the day's usual light
in the bar where she fuels

competition.

She chalks her stick,
slicks the arrow's tip
with ceremonial oil,

flammable but hardly toxic.

Her voice smolders, low.
She raises an eyebrow

to blazon a definitive rule,

steadies her cigarette
on the table's ledge,

an outrage.

60

When she invites me to play,
I am of two minds,

but in the long shadow

of the pool hall,

Marla insists.

She circles the green
to find her next move,

takes fire at the table's rim.

"lllllllllllllllllll