Poetry
by Susan Berlin
BEFORE THE PARTY
On the other side of the bedroom wall,
their daughter sits, ramrod straight
at the edge of her bed, so as not
to put a single wrinkle
in her starched, pleated party dress.
With each blow, she smooths
the bedspread beside her, smooths
her skirt over skinned knees, smooths
her pony-tail from the rubber band
down to the bottom, likes the way
the end of it curls around her wrist
like a puppy's tongue,
and she sits, feet pressed together
in white socks and good, red shoes.
When it's done,
a window opens.
A nose is blown.
The girl inhales slowly,
closes her eyes for a second,
places her hands back in her lap,
and watches the door.
INTROVERT WITH 2-INCH SPINES
As the ivy (dead
in a cracked clay pot
on the top back step) suggests,
she's not good
at keeping things alive -- her
one success the cactus plant,
cinched in a china cup, kept
on the kichen window ledge.
There's not much to do
by way of care: it needs sun
(which isn't up to her) and doesn't
like to be talked to or touched.
Today she moves the cup,
for a better view, to the back porch;
but then, spotting the ring it left,
moves it back, covers it up.
ACQUIRED TRAIT
With tapwater running full-force
in the sink and your face
in a Turkish towel, the crying
can't be heard beyond
the bathroom door: this
a trick I learned
from my mother.
She taught me, too,
to disagree in silence,
record thoughts like minutes
at a meeting of mutes, all talk
postponed until my father's next absence
which was never far away. To this day,
I can sit at the table, smile fixed
in place as plates are pushed (un-
touched) to the center, any hunger
erased by the simple scrape
of a captain's chair, no
matter who's in it, no
matter where.
HOLDING
Italian tenors make her cry
well before the crescendo.
Not familiar with their tongue,
she identifies
with the vast intake of breath,
the shoring up of lungs
with supplies
for the long haul.
She knows what to make
of the way their bodies shake,
banking all their strength
and perfect pitch
on one note and holding it
long past the breaking point.
FROM MY WINDOW
From my window upstairs
I see what the wind was up to
last night, the white plastic lawnchairs
tossed around, tipped upsidedown,
flung under trees where they kneel
at the trunks like repentant drunks
evicted from the party
of a neighboring friend
to which I listened all night
but did not attend.
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