There will be less to bicker about.
Shadows will rise against a cornucopia
of lust-laden stars. The monumental
power of grief will astound us.
Beautiful children will fall asleep dreaming
of duplicity, an exclusionary tradition earned
only in the imagination.
I can not carry the world upon my shoulders
any longer. And so I challenge myself
not to strike the profound with my symphony
of complaints. I promise not to disclose.
From both a great distance and also too near
to be ignored, I celebrate all the little suicides
I remember so well.
Because the question arises.
Strangers alongside have no qualms
asking. It's a misfortune, their ideas,
when all I hear is this ominous knocking.
A thousand times my heart has broken
over such doors!
I sit well today. I'm good friends with certainty.
She even bought me a ticket to the movie:
Things Killed Inside of Me.
Coming from ruin,
the man offers me his chest
to cry on. I don't cry, but I do lay my head down.
Let my heart fill with stars.
Let the pewter you gave me, as a child, mother,
send shivers down
my daughter's spine.
Let the ink on the paper
not bleed, a blue mess
into Alice's clear eyes.
Let the rain
rain.
Let the sun shine
bright against my shoe-stepped shadow.
Let the shadow, unnamed, have a history.
If I choose to write
let the words touch the skin of my loved ones.
If I choose not to write
let my actions speak in volumes.
Perhaps then I'll be a pomegranate bursting.
Red seeds.
Stains everywhere.
Lisa Zaran is a Pushcart nominee and the author of seven collections. Her latest book titled If It We (Lummox Press), released in April 2012 is currently the focus of a translation course in Germany. Selections from her other books have been translated to Bangla, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, German, Dutch, Persian and Serbian. Lisa is founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices, an online collection of poetry by American poets. She lives and writes in Arizona.
del.icio.us
