2 Poems

My Bent Spoon

-for my boys I am not immune (ahem) a woman counting the cards of her flesh upon the table, tiny smacks, spitty fingers, birds nest slipping left four  four  four If I could pickle smirks five today, maybe twelve to go, overcast spiders where’s your energy hidden? one morning I saw two blue caterpillars staring across the covers at me. Forget this I aged. A plow will              uprooting like this                           always and the bathroom door   and the mustard blood will rock like undertow it’s a snail shells and trails of us leaking up the porch post and the one noble knighting a pet named Girl everything whips. Sleep a bumper-car  so intimate, the taste of electricity, teeth— shake in the awning against and against I see still lives. Bend. It’s impatient to watch the redness so want it’s all solitaire dusting the hair the countless    lose feet like a canyon one spoon sage the window one spoon near black more door; bee and the ears of a horsefly za-za and the polite sneeze of women who want to be women I’m nervous the grasses are alphabetized and the universe mapped in silver coil, stretching our mouth with friction my collarbone my shrub, my bent spoon my woman darkening with the gravity of the cards on her flesh hold court to her boys next will be everywhere at once Libretto Explained A libretto is what exactly? Do I need to see the Pirates of Penzance after all? Does it have something to do with freedom? No, it’s a diminutive of book—it means “little book.” But does it also imply amaretto flowing forth? A pierced chin? A dainty ornament to hold back the hair? No, it is simply the text of an opera, or a work of musical theater— But is it still used? Is it rather silly now like scurvy and absinthe and outhouses and houseboats and rickets and moonshine? Does the author intend to lie to his audience? Do only scoudrels write librettos? Well, let’s see. There was Debussy and er—Strauss and Gertrude Stein in a way. But are librettos long? Is there any pain involved? It sounds like a sort of curly pasta. Well, it’s an Italian word— Did Liberace write librettos? The plural is actually libretti. But I want to glue together a libretto out of blue glass and lemon meringue. I want to wear a libretto around my neck for future chastity. But, no, you don’t understand. Here. Listen to Die Zauberflöte and read along. I roll chicken inside my librettos and fry them like flutes. My libretto laughs through its nose and wears a beret. But you must pay attention to the words, the fall of the accents! No, I was right after all. Libretto does mean freedom. Libretto is the freedom from the tyranny of exact translation. Libretto is my infant child and she doesn’t know whether my words have meaning— she only knows that the sounds are true. Relax love. I’ll go put on some tea. Make us a tray of libretto and butter.

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