My collection of bird nests knocked down by the ice and wind is formidable. My shoe laces are often untied. After my father died I sat out on a city stoop in the rain and lit cigarettes with a friend in honor of my Dad who smoked too much. It was hard for a vehement non-smoker to pretend, but it was a mysterious honor. I accept the topographical error in my childhood atlas and photograph sunsets not for enlargements, but to focus on an intimate imitation of my mother's habits.
Peccadillo by Mary Ruefle
I love you like pink tiles and white cigarettes
and the brown underfeathers of a fat hen
and I do not even know you, you are like my toes
which I have never seen because I was born in shoes
whose laces continually come undone
so I am forever stooped and while I am down
I gather for you all the porcupine quills
left by the rain, my collection is formidable
but not for sale, and when I am up
I make for you color enlargements of the day:
look at this cloud will you, until you arrive
I will not know if the rain fell beautifully
or dripped continually, I assume by now
my commitment to you is transparent
and that you accept the topographical error
in the depths of my atlas,
still there will be many mysteries between us,
you were not exactly here when my alarm clock was stolen
or my cat sold without my permission,
but those days are behind me,
after a life of expensive moments devoured by fogs
they mowed the fields into haystacks,
they covered the haystacks with white shrouds
and rolled them off to the side like stones
and brought in the trembling lights of a carnival
where it is my one desire
we will hang together upside down on the wheel
while the crowd gasps as you kiss me.
Peccadillo by Mary RuefleI love you like pink tiles and white cigarettes
and the brown underfeathers of a fat hen
and I do not even know you, you are like my toes
which I have never seen because I was born in shoes
whose laces continually come undone
so I am forever stooped and while I am down
I gather for you all the porcupine quills
left by the rain, my collection is formidable
but not for sale, and when I am up
I make for you color enlargements of the day:
look at this cloud will you, until you arrive
I will not know if the rain fell beautifully
or dripped continually, I assume by now
my commitment to you is transparent
and that you accept the topographical error
in the depths of my atlas,
still there will be many mysteries between us,
you were not exactly here when my alarm clock was stolen
or my cat sold without my permission,
but those days are behind me,
after a life of expensive moments devoured by fogs
they mowed the fields into haystacks,
they covered the haystacks with white shrouds
and rolled them off to the side like stones
and brought in the trembling lights of a carnival
where it is my one desire
we will hang together upside down on the wheel
while the crowd gasps as you kiss me.
Leave a comment