Helen of Troy

[ Helen of Troy ]

When the others arrived, we were, as mother said, dying for the eggs to hatch. I don't think so. When the others arrived, the fact is, we were all a little dead. Our lips were dry. And before? We read passages from the picture books, we told secrets, we sang, while we finished off a plate of cherries, how the chickens must first be plucked, and then broiled. When the others arrived, we agreed, that we mustn't look at the eggs. We must be careful, we'd whisper, as the evening grew thick with the scent of sawdust, or the eggs will ask us to dance or, worse, clip our wings and beg for our forgiveness. Mother didn't think so. A hatch of people arrive, when the eggs have been arranged into more complicated patterns, and point their beaks down our throats. There is the sound of shoveling in my yard. We will wait for news of the extinction. Mother, stunned by our restlessness, has gathered us to bed. We are always thinking about the eggs, as we wait for the others to arrive, and it has become impossible for me to say how certain things happen.
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I'm something she hears

[ I'm something she hears ]

Where did I get the idea, hours ago,
to write a poem out of belles?
The palinode next to me is very small;
she is smaller and lighter and whiter
than I’d expected. I’d hardly seen anyone
for days, exactly the way I'd wanted to
see them. And then I smell your orchid
wings as the moon came out, and a hard
wind lifting pollen out of your hair.
Each rose hip holds a few achenes.
Each vowel holds the greatest sonority
far from the feathered rustle of sheets.
Coneflowers can be,
                        but do resent being
moved. In the first dream, I've forgotten
what broght us together, reminding
me how comfortably you fit within
the familiar outline of my body.
The number of blows required
to completely rid the clock of its seeds
is deemed to be the time of day.
In the first dream, I kissed your temple
without disturbing the perfume of hair.
Thus there was no time of day.
In the first dream, I've lost something,
O coneflower, you awoke, alone, on the couch:
a heartbreaking poem among many
heartbreaking poems.
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