April 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Blue Suns, Yellow Skies
At six, my sister claimed she remembered birth,
that moment the scalpel sliced across our mother’s abdomen
and pried open the flesh to expose
her miniature body held inside.
The first thing you know
is how cold the world feels,
she said, nestled inside a sleeping bag
covered with blankets, gripping
her stuffed lion,
You either have to find that warmth again
or try to forget it.
Maybe that’s why she curled into
her first boyfriend’s body
at fifteen, a question mark in darkness,
until she felt an oppressive heat,
kicked the covers off both their bodies,
and told him she needed to get out,
though when he threatened
to leave permanently, she only said, But I need,
I need, through tears.
Or perhaps it explains how her rage
started to match our mother’s
as they rolled on the kitchen floor,
clenching hair, slamming each other’s heads
against the wooden cupboards,
my sister crying out,
bitch, fuck-up, I hate you—
words my mother had slung
at her as long as she could remember—
red faced, scrunched and screaming
as each blow drove them farther from
that first trapped dependency.
I pick up one of the books she wrote
when she claimed her keen memory—
misspelled words scrawled in crayon
beneath suns colored blue and skies colored yellow,
and even the book itself, inverted,
so you had to turn it backwards to begin,
as if my sister always knew
that to understand anything,
you must distort your normal perceptions,
start at the end,
and painstakingly search for the beginning.
The Side Of The Road
A deer, writhing
by the side of the road,
neck arched up and twisting,
as if pinned by some invisible hand—
we stumble upon it
dumbfounded as we confront
its mashed organs,
a red juiced glaze
on the concrete.
The fur’s matted with blood,
torn apart like cloth ripped
open by a pair of urgent hands.
(Do all things have this dormant
force beneath surfaces,
waiting to explode?)
Grotesque,
hard to sustain even a glance,
which is why we look away,
avoid what’s inevitable,
though we can’t now,
can we?
The deer lifts
its head, mouth agape.
I didn’t expect silence,
thought it would scream
a cry akin to human grief.
What do we do?
You shrug. What is there to do
but leave it here to die?
I put my head on your shoulder.
(How many times have I sought
solace there?) I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I cry.
How can you turn away?
It’s not the deer anymore, is it?
Just look into the terror-stare of those
black eyes, the trembling
torso, immobile legs collapsed
like a puppet tossed aside—there will never
be a time when love is easy for us again.
I put my hand in yours, Please, Do I need to say it?
Do you need anymore proof
that we’re past the point of miracles?
There will be no resurrection today.
Please… You flinch, jerk
your hand from mine,
You can’t ask me to do that.
Perhaps you’re imagining
the grace of the deer in the woods
before all this, its body springing
from the slightest sound, its sprint
through the brush, leaves trampled
like petals scattered at a wedding march.
Perhaps you need to hold that image a moment
before you can reconcile
what must be done. But there’s no time,
we can’t let it linger. If you’ll just
hand me the gun, then I’ll do it.
I’ll shoot it for both of us.
April 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Not Me
Who could have imagined
I’d be sitting here
on my numb ass
in this stuffy, gray, meeting room
hunched over
a big shiny boardroom table
discussing the customer response
to our security of supply
business continuity plan and rollout
instead of on the latest research vessel
out of Woods Hole collecting
phytoplankton and zooplankton,
jellyfish larva and sea urchin eggs,
like I was planning and hoping to do
way back in the beginning?
Who? Not me certainly. Not me.
Silly, naive girl
She rejected him, plain and simple as that,
when he moved in on her,
slid up against her
in the back seat of the car.
She nudged him away, firmly,
and moved in the opposite direction,
putting some space between them.
On this impulsive first blind date of hers
she had no intention, no inclination, no desire,
to engage in any romance whatsoever,
she had all the romance she could handle with me,
her real boyfriend at the time.
I suppose she was simply curious
about other guys and wanted to have some fun
at a ball game or the movies. Silly, naive girl.
There’s not a guy on the planet
who wouldn’t give anything
to get his hands on her.
Some fun at a game or the movies – HA!
I always tell you that
I watch you closely
from across the playground,
helping Brooke up the jungle gym
then back down again,
your black top and soft beige slacks
still brimming with beauty,
simmering with sensuality
even after all these years –
and you don’t even know!
I tell you of course, I cannot help myself.
But you are too modest to hear,
too modest to acknowledge my adulation,
reminding me, “Oh, you always tell me that.”
Yes, yes, I do. I do always tell you that,
can you blame me? Just look at you!
You are quite simply
the most beautiful woman I have ever seen
and I am now, as ever, ecstatic
that you are still mine.
But I cannot help wondering if suddenly
I were no longer around
telling you of your beauty, your sweetness,
your limitless sensuality,
and how important you are to me
and what a superlative woman you are,
would you miss hearing it? I wonder.
Would you miss me at all?
Michael Estabrook is a baby boomer who began getting his poetry published in the late 1980s. Over the years he has published 15 poetry chapbooks, his most recent entitled “When the Muse Speaks.” Other interests include art, music, theatre, opera, and his wife who just happens to be the most beautiful woman he has ever known.
April 2011 | back-issues, poetry
our grave hearts crave in the dead night
old arms of night have taken our city abreast
our nameless faceless city
sweating/stinking
a broken-down mosaic
red rotting brick/dilapidated alleys
sheltering dark looms
drain pipes drip hot
fire-escapes uproot themselves
from failing architecture
music falls onto the street from open windows
a morose violin wheezes out
adolescent/untrained notes
lungs of animals
and men and women
expand and collapse
singing/speaking/crying/loving/hating
in this city/all cities
this throbbing/beating/machine-heart
in the infantile hours of morning
black money is changing hands
our grave hearts crave in the dead night
i wish i knew like the old trees
another first story of time
our morning street is warm
with the golden coming
from blood and a beating heart
life as it runs off the feet of men
and women singing
swelling undertones
harmonious high keys
distant sirens
lost in leaves
men like the grey trunks
overgrown, tired with hating
old men pedal past
flashing golden smiles
dry lipped
dancing
in dim daybreak sun
