–photos by mickey [Michele] morgan
I did my best, and I know I’ve made errors here, so help me out, Cincinnati Ballet Veterans! (many thanks to Rene Micheo)
The birds are beautiful today. I remember no other day have they sung such an integrated symphony. Then I hear why:
“Who’s responsible for cleaning up this dead thing?” “Uh. I dunno . . . yeh, ‘t’s a dead bird, I guess.”
The winged beauties circled wide and high above their lost child . . . and sang and cried to each other all morning.
She faces the settled form;
densely bound beneath an auburn down,
olive skin like mama’s belly
curves and cups bulb
eyes that seem so ready
to roll out wetly,
not competently contained
by fences of thick thorn lashes;
filament fingers flutter above
the hollow curve of loss.
Words form by compression—
the bend of the torso,
down and in, then out,
suspended for a moment—
mauve lips are fragile vines.
Words spill, scattering
as does she as she
gathers
chestnut crystals.
Photo by Oliver Sjöström on Pexels.com
Start running
from the door
up the steps
urine smell
of cats
to the corner.
Garbage
spills to gutters
and the sidewalks
stain with grease.
Run past the curb
to the other,
up the pavement
to the station
where the boxer
growing old,
and now retired
pumps his gas,
flatters men
he doesn’t like
yet bows a formal
“Ciao!”
to a woman
running forward
wanting back
all the body
she once had.
Rhythm though
monotonous,
she knows she
must stay with it,
jog to find
an equili-
brium and make it
past the stores
with their trinkets,
and the cars
buzz like gnats,
shrill her ears,
fill her lungs
with veils of fumes.
Buses
packed with bodies,
bunched up stems,
bouquets
of stinking weeds.
And run
past the church
that is empty
always empty
save for hefty
black-shawled
rosaried women,
stub hair back,
short.
Stockings
slide in shoes
worn from shopping,
cooking, cleaning,
stooping, taking
care to serve.
Hurry
to the villa
up ahead.
Walls
shot with holes
of cannonballs
from the time of Garibaldi.
Outside.
That’s the outside.
And the ramp
will take her inside
Enter
through the portal.
Jog
to the open, to the garden
that has been here while she was running.
Feel the pulse receding as she leaves what’s
outside, slowing breathing, walking over bones sedate
in their rest, birds, squirrels, chipmunks.
Water flows over rocks, obedient to no
force but their own. She lies down with them.
photos by mickey morgan
A Die-In,
sponsored by students of the Univ. of Cincinnati’s Center for Women’s Studies
Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com
