Poetry

She Wants

She wants a gold and sapphire ring.
She wants a black cashmere coat.
She wants the gray silk kimono
with rose-colored cranes that lift
from the floor. She wants
a silver, sleek auto, clean lines,
spoked wheels, the inside cushy
with stereo sound equalized
to an upbeat escape. She wants
a self-contained condo at the beach.

She wants things the way
a soldier wants ammo, wants
armor to wage his war.
She wants shells and bones
and shining coins.

She wants to look like
a Hollywood starlet
but if she did
she'd pull her hair back straight
go live in the desert
like Georgia O'Keefe.
                                                                        With my daughter Jessica on the Illinois River


a version of this poem appeared first in Rivertalk

Apotheosis

My mother dressed her girls in dotted swiss
dresses she made herself, with crisp
white netted slips that scratched bare thighs

and starched Peter Pan collars that itched
like the growth of stunted wings. Sundays
we sat in rows on pews so polished

heaven must smell of lemon oil.
When bells rang the cue, we knelt in unison,
folded hands, and bowed our heads

under lop-sided weight of lowered bonnets.
One time, my little brother, a good
putti-faced boy, crawled and played

beneath the pews and returned with a trophy
he presented with glee to our mother: a single
black patent leather pump. The giggles

warmed my lap, rippled up my ribs,
then laughing shook my shoulders like salt
over popcorn, rose in waves to fill

my cheeks. And as they passed the shoe back,
hand over solemn Catholic hand,
I began to lift and float high above

the congregation--the full weight of me
expanding, all ruffles, a scab on my knee,
scuffed Mary Janes rising, my cotton

underpants revealed, as I floated free
in the marble carved clerestory
like one of those balloons in the Rose Parade.

                      a version of this poem appeared first in the Clackamas Literary Review

Easter Sunday with my brother Johnny, taken in front of Mom's favorite red rose bush

Persieds

On the old army cot that you left when you died,
I slept out all night in the Perseid Shower,
fell asleep around twelve, then woke up at three
to silence and galaxies sliding through night.

I slept out all night in the Perseid Shower,
wanting to be touched by falling light,
by silence, and galaxies sliding through night,
by other worlds burning their way to the earth.

Waiting for the falling touch of the light,
I named the stars the way we used to do,
while other worlds burned to dust in the earth,
throwing their fires to the marrow of darkness.

I tried naming stars the way we used to do,
fell asleep in the yard till you woke me at three--
sending meteor dreams to light up the darkness
around the old army cot that you left when you died.

a version of this poem appeared in Midwest Poetry Review

Helen at Eleven

Helen at eleven is an ostrich, knob-kneed,
gawk-awkward, too shy to even speak, and yet
Tindareus, her dad, has got big plans for her.
So he forces her to eat--fat apples, olive oil
by the spoonful, those rare Persian dates, just a little
more lamb, my dear. He hires the finest
Athenian orthodontist to engineer a bridge,
a costly golden clamp to close

the gap in her teeth when she smiles. Mother
smears a smelly milk and lemon mix on Helen's
nose each morning to banish inflexible freckles,
and brushes her hair till the scalp burns
a thousand and one strokes. A favorite aunt
sends a birthday gift--cotton knit training bra,
matching panties with bows, along with a secret
ointment to be rubbed in circles daily

on Helen's flat chest. Grandmother corrects
diction, emphasizing the long vowel sound,
lips stretched to get a suggestive drawl,
highly prized in the Aegean. Professionals arrive.

A dressmaker whose tricks can hide the worst
figure flaw. A philosopher cunning in the arts
of discourse both public and private. A personal
trainer whose weight machine and resisitance

routine will work all three sets of difficult
abdominals, will shape even the stubborn gluteus
maximus. Her father surveys his maps while
counting Helen's sit-ups. All of this
so some rich old king might bed her. All
of this, to drive young Paris mad.
All of this, Achilles' heel, Cassandra's
cry, and the doom of the thousand ships.

a version of this poem appeared first in the West Wind Review

That's me in the poodle skirt with my sister, Colleen.

Jackie McNamara