storyboard> literature categories> poetry> four poems
Frost in the Deep South

Down here rain’s the whole story. God’s wash
buckets empty themselves for days on end.
The sky turns green, the air dense, more cotton
than wind. A damp upholstered heaven.
The heavy, heavy sky.

Some spiral demon corkscrews through town.
Give me a natural disaster
less malicious. There’s nothing noble
to those cows lifted up a mile, skinned,
then dropped to the dispassionate ground.

I’ll take my seasons bare and bitter-lived,
Not this dog-breathed heat and churning sky,
the something that doesn’t love at all.
Don't all our storms come up toward the house?
Nothing clever to a downpour followed by
a string of shining days. A southern storm’s try
at apology, polite atonement.
For what can’t be undone. But keeps at us.

The rain may be sorry, but I’m not.
I've known ice mornings and frozen fields.
Mine was a lover’s quarrel after all,
but the world — the world won every round.

My country’s self-righteous, a bit corrupt.
A preacher on a binge. But it forgives
a broken man his breaking. Besides,
I want to see this old white phantom breath stain
that spot of sky near my chin. A new cloud
reminding me I breathe — visible breath.
I live — despite my lost love, my dead children.

Still, I’m not winter-broken yet.
Maybe it's the snow. The pristine, rigid
promise of its straight-laced icy prayer.
Is it mending time again? Is it now?
Save a place for me and I'll be there.

Tenebrious

O night sky it’s me again
the lost one
the last one to leave the nest
made of needles, broken glass,
and a dollhead floating
free of its plastic body
Just as well
these nights are uncle-haunted
and darker than Dolly can sleep through
I'll be a Tinkerbell girl
windowpane wings
dragonfly heart
far away from the girl
on the bed the mummifying sheets

I’ll take that rectangled slice
of distant heaven, curtained
and removed. I’ll take that promise
of elsewhere while his hands
too-near starfish
suction themselves to evermore

Lila Loves a White-barked Weeping Willow on 13th East

for Elizabeth Simpson

Deep southern July & so humid the moon floats
on the face of the sky like paper.
One long dog’s breath away from fall,
she is the girl sleeping on a balcony
chorophyll-dreaming cricket song
and the kudzu’s climb foot-a-night
so that morning finds the moon
captive in stranglehold vines.
Nothing would amaze her.
She is spaghetti-staps and flip-flops,
hair chopstick-speared at the nape of her neck,
summer’s light gone
amber-caught and afternoon.
She is a girl held by so much.
A magnolia tree looks like a swayback
woman in a fishtail gown.
Lovely, but not the willow with its gawdy bangles,
a woman with freshly washed hair
bending at the waist.
If it isn’t Monday in a faded shift
she’s a girl in a lush gully
hopscotching her days.
The season is gift-wrapped and blazing
katydid green, lime popsicle,
applegreen, citrus flame.

A Basket of Lila Holds

She carries the day she carried you
then uncarried
then carried on
mostly

She carries the silver softness,
the memory of the full belly
the renegade whisker of the cat
she loved entirely

She carries herself
when she can
when she can’t

She carries a Guatemalan coin purse
nightflower embroidered
given by him
She carries a silky wrist scar
corkscrewing nearly full circle
dangerous bracelet
She carries a crown ring twin pear sapphires
from her mother's hands
three gypsy bands
to equal three wishes
She carries Mauve Ice lipstick
A postcard of Jackson Square
A New York subway token
& 17 pennies that weigh her down
She carries ambivalent colors an olive-grey purse
mauve-lavender-beige-gray scarf.
Mittens not slate blue not gray, not bled black
Colors you can only name
by saying what they are not
She carries her Father’s blood
her Mother’s hands
her Grandmother's skewed vision
revised.
She carries sorrow to the river
in a bag full of stones
and lets it sink
(Admittedly, sometimes it sinks her).

She carries nobody’s name
nobody's child
nobody's misfired hope
no body inside her

She carries too many words
in a kid-suede pouch
called Nostalgia

She carries solid tears
moonstone, mother-of-pearl
She carries Gypsy feet
over the same tired road
over the hill and back again
and back again and back

Lila doesn’t carry matches
or aspirin or any of the things
a good girl-purse should hold

She doesn’t carry a toothbrush
or hand lotion, a daytimer, safety
pins

She doesn’t carry promises far enough
or too far

She doesn’t carry tax forms or glass slippers, eyes of newt
or easy magic

There’s no place inside Lila
to hold card houses
or broken glass
lost rings
ghostbabies
beige

She hasn’t room enough in her cluttered heart
to accommodate hairpins scarcity or restraint
practical or grown-up

Lila’s hung on a No Vacancy sign
just for damaged love, de-enchantment
glimmer-free kisses
sandcastle kickers
make-believe matters.

 

+ All poetry by Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis, about the author
+ Feature selection by Adriana de Barros, about the author

[ print ] [ top ]

Frost in the Deep South
Tenebrious
Lila Loves a White-barked Weeping Willow on 13th East
A Basket of Lila Holds

All poems by Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis
Feature selection by Adriana de Barros

Wordsonwalls

Send feedback about this feature

Advertise at Scene 360:

Media Sponsor: The Best Designs