IMAGE OF EARTH AND QUILL

Guest Poet Janet I. Buck



Brillo Pads & Body Casts

Ironically it’s what was missing
from the waste of paste of 
Fate mistaking pride and other
power tools for ultra-violet 
fortitude regarding all the
bump and grind of bones
that grew in some spots
not in all of them like
grass forgotten by a hose.
This is what was body-casting.
Mattresses were Brillo Pads.
The plate of femininity defined
by misdemeanors, guarded tears,
that never could decide if
it was really safe to fall.

Cops of eyes would pull her over.
Then begin the cruel frisking.
Whisking all the eggs of mind
and dumping them in burning skillets.
He was hot pads by the stove.
Made her feel as though her bones
were not just dented cans to place
behind the rows of perfect ones.
Dichotomies of absent parts
are not the substance of the dawn.
The traffic court of weighing in.
Candor’s gavel on her thumbs.
The aftertaste of eyes is hard.
Taking off the scabs of heart 
was learning lush is in the head.
That in the game of growing faith,
a pair of satin, satin thighs
is not the only, only card.


May, 1998


Janet I. Buck's Questions:

Is the topsy-turvy combination of traditional form and rhetoric with experimentation and word-play accessible to the reader or is merely confusing?

Thank you.


Correspond with Janet I. Buck at
JBuck22874@aol.com
with your ideas about this poem.



The Albany Poetry Workshop