Getting the Switch

Hot pre-beating tears
Blur the vision
Being sent out to pick
The switch, complicit
In one’s own punishment
Forge past a carver of air
Red whelps & whoosh
Run your hand
Through the bush
Beware hidden green’s
Flexible youth,
Select a weary branch,
Thump your palm, test the heft,
It must perform brutality
But secretly bear some of its brunt
A fist’s clean sweep
Strips it, a swirling cascade
Of leaves skip like eager
wind kicking up before the storm
Too long and momdadgrandmaaunt
Will pick for you
You can not tuck tail, worse if you run
Sometimes there is no salve to soothe
The cycle once begun
The brooding adult’s
Fear and fury, bred
Bled into one

Rita’s

(for Hayes)

After he’d left to his favorite hometown barber,
my boyfriend’s father positioned the ask
like a pop quiz, Rita’s mango water ice,
you’ve never had it? Next thing I knew
one hand held a tablespoon nearly spilling with ice
shavings the color of a sun setting through a fire’s haze.
The other hand was cupped underneath, ready to feed
me as if I were a child and such an eager delight I was!
Lips painted to please, mouth open, pink tongue
quivering. You know it still lingers, the fruit’s
tang--slick--against the cold metal spoon.
The older man’s eyes-- ravenous.

Ode to the Gustav Klimt 1000-piece puzzle “The Kiss”

Always the frame
first, you need a
beginning to lock in
the end. Klimt’s
stars spill, see the
burnished brown
as a galaxy that on
closer inspection
burns gold, gold
near her hair,
gold in her cape,
gold holding her
as tight as her lover.
The ivy’s weaving
itself in his hair,
greening after you
chased gold there,
by then you’re
seduced by blocks
of black, focusing
on shape, looking
for a perfect
fit. Satisfaction
is solid and thick
connections, filling
the puzzle in
section by section.
Here, her pursed mouth,
here, his kisses, pursuing
a path from bluish white
blushed cheek to scarlet lip.
O, her wrapt hand
urgent on his neck!
O, her fingers small
settled on his knuckles.
When the eyes are in concert
with the fingers, they fly
to each piece, evaluating it
for slimness of neck,
width of embrace,
even the irregular pieces
are guaranteed a reception.
O, the flowers in her hair!
O, the petals of her gown!

Representative

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty-five Years . . . a and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

For my Dad’s mother, my Mom’s mother, and my mother when I asked them what they were doing at age 21.

Vergie

Her marriage a toddler
eyes opening
to a window in the projects
balancing need’s gnawing hunger
with wants petulant demands

Katie Mae “Ma”

Her marriage a toddler,
two children yanking
kitchen towels on the floor
her belly swelling with one more
perfecting a diplomatic dance
a husband’s entitlements
replacing a father’s commands

Mom

Her marriage a toddler
a two-year-old
& a pregnant mother
must learn to share
bandying green thoughts
on a cracked foundation

Granddaughter/daughter

Flat stomach grumbling,
she ambles to a cabinet
full enough to choose.
Graduate study group
on a Saturday afternoon
her sole focus.
Catching the sun,
her belly chain glints
generations flexing.

Woman Eating

The pear was so luscious that her tongue chased
its clear juice down ripe soft shoulders, past the curves
and before the calyx and kept searching, not a drop
wasted of any ambrosia this sweet. If a man sees it,
does that make it suggestive? What of a pickle
A corndog, a popsicle? Can she enjoy the pureed
purple of pomegranate blended with the bruised red of acai
Sustainably manufactured and grafted to a recyclable handle?
If she licks it, swallows it, buries it deep past pink bubblegum-
painted lips, her tongue and soft palate cooling her inside out--
Is she wrong to do it in public? If a man sees it does
that make it smutty? Why can’t he focus on the icy
sweetness of the treat’s refreshing cool on a climate
charged summer’s day? When can a woman’s pleasure
be centered without the male gaze to qualify, condemn,
or exploit? Can innuendo take a backseat, can a woman’s
mouth solely feed her own body? Must her joyous,
essential and nourishing moments be surveilled and judged wanting?

Lamentations on Pruning I

Overwhelming I attend soggy soil with such
an expectant air, gnats hatch, hovering.
They thrive on my anxious and eager love.
How loathe I am to pinch anything back
to kill what so desperately wants to live.
I understand too well how to crane
one’s neck, for a little sun. This knowledge
stuns my thumb-keeps it slack. I sit back
and watch as every green thing dies.

© Teri Ellen Cross Davis, all rights reserved