Your Favorite Poems

evolveme · 04-25-2010, 04:36 PM

The way the tits of lemon meringue whorled

in the window that day
looked at first like breasts, then more like paws of my grandfather's

clubfoot Siamese.
I want to believe that, after he died, the cat didn't

gnaw off his face. I've heard it happens. I'd like to ask the pastry chef

if his vision of whipped
egg whites and sugar meant he saw, in a dream, that mangled paw

pressed to my grandfather's chest.
I know my grandfather

died alone, with the TV on. I need to know
he kept his face that day, in the green armchair, that the channel
he chose as his heart slowed was not

televangelism, but a bird documentary: dark-eyed juncos
jilting the magnolias, fiercer than angels

flying south. I need to know the show's voice-over
was pitched in the gauzy

timbre of lullaby--low and Latinate, Byzantine. Because
hearing, during death, is the last

faculty to go. And so, his last moments
were filled with the wing beat of juncos, and a calm,

omniscient voice: Fringilla nigra, ventre albo--black
finch, with a white belly. Languid in heat, the meringue
breasts cave a little, almost inscrutably

burnt brown at the side-seams, and at the tips. I lick
my lips, though I
won't enter. I'm afraid

like Christ they'd turn
to flesh in my mouth.

04-25-2010, 04:36 PM	#11
evolveme Member How Do You Identify?: honeysuckle venom Preferred Pronoun?: a pistol and a sugar cane Relationship Status: I promise to aid and abet Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: in between poems where ceilings are floors and joe ghost floats achromatic toward day Posts: 514 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 229 Thanked 735 Times in 228 Posts Rep Power: 503699	Elegy: I Pass by the Erotic Bakery - Anna Journey The way the tits of lemon meringue whorled in the window that day looked at first like breasts, then more like paws of my grandfather's clubfoot Siamese. I want to believe that, after he died, the cat didn't gnaw off his face. I've heard it happens. I'd like to ask the pastry chef if his vision of whipped egg whites and sugar meant he saw, in a dream, that mangled paw pressed to my grandfather's chest. I know my grandfather died alone, with the TV on. I need to know he kept his face that day, in the green armchair, that the channel he chose as his heart slowed was not televangelism, but a bird documentary: dark-eyed juncos jilting the magnolias, fiercer than angels flying south. I need to know the show's voice-over was pitched in the gauzy timbre of lullaby--low and Latinate, Byzantine. Because hearing, during death, is the last faculty to go. And so, his last moments were filled with the wing beat of juncos, and a calm, omniscient voice: Fringilla nigra, ventre albo--black finch, with a white belly. Languid in heat, the meringue breasts cave a little, almost inscrutably burnt brown at the side-seams, and at the tips. I lick my lips, though I won't enter. I'm afraid like Christ they'd turn to flesh in my mouth. __________________ Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside. - Dorothy Allison

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Switch to Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Threaded Mode