Photo by Karen Antashyan
THANKSGIVING
“Love is not all. It is not food nor drink.” Edna St. Vincent Millay
Nor is food love, but palate’s sport alone.
Even with ceremony, without toast or vow,
it is just means of keeping flesh on bone.
But table and altar are confused somehow.
We substitute our food, again, again
for rites of love. Look how this buffet sinks
with golden fowl and platters of grain
and candles for our eyes to drink.
Love is not food, but in the name of those
with parched throats, who could not eat
or pray, whose empty mouths have closed
whose bellies swelled with pain not meat
we call it sustenance when it is shared.
And sharing we call prayer.
ANGEL IN SOMERVILLE
Once Sona gave me an angel. Or I should say
a drawing of one sprinkling stars
like snow, inscribing it, “Diana scattering
light.” Not mother, not mommy, not mom —
she used my name. I taped it to the door
of her old room and there it stayed until
it came to life today. Walking in Somerville
I saw a woman in an empty parking lot
scattering crumbs St. Francis style
to swarming pigeons at her feet,
Sona’s angel strewing stars, chatting as regent,
angel, queen, — bag lady no more, but mother
feeding her children, dispensing grace.
DAUGHTER
I was the child who swallowed whole
the sight of showmen eating fire,
flying rabbits on piano wire,
every happy ending told,
sure that straw could spin to gold.
I grew older. Gold spun back to straw.
I learned miracles could lie
only in the beholder’s eye.
Stayed jaded until the day I saw
two eyes fill with my old awe.
SHIFTING THE SUN
When your father dies, say the Irish
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Welsh
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians
When your father dies, say the Canadians
you run out of excuses.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Indians
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the British,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn’t.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever
and you walk in his light.
OPEN POEM
death lies beside each sleeper
that day wakes up
stalks every step
puts down the heel
that pace picks up again
and exhales every breath
except where love breathes in
THE BLUE LOUISIANA HERON DREAM
A blue heron
is bending in the rain
fishing for summer
in the river.
A boy walks
with pail and pole
across this dream
toward his own
drowning.
I will wake
in a little while
old and in the north.
A blue heron
will be bending outside
in the snow.
HOW I ENTERED POETRY
I saw it shining
in the snow
outside the used car
display store
and asked the salesman
what it was.
“A Porsche Poem,”
he said, “What’s more,
it’s not for you.
Too much power.
It goes too fast.
But uses very
little gas.”
“I’ll take it. It’s my car!”
I said, placing a down
payment down and fled.
Driving,
when other cars
passed by
I’d laugh, knowing,
if I chose…
I fly.
On a Line by Brian Phillips
“We are the generation
that neglected Geoffrey Hill.”
We are those who venerated
the venal and mentally ill.
We liberated the libido
and individual will. We walked
the moon, and talked up the vox
populi. We sanitized the sexual and
sensationalized the pill.
We garnered blurbs, cooked
with herbs, left the ’burbs. And left
our analysts. We channel surfed,
had T section births and elevated
the obscure and effete. We killed
chlorophyll, Near East good will
and neglected poor Geoffrey Hill.
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