Poem Without a Gazelle, and: The Warp, and: At the Gate, and: Poem for a Daughter III
Rent from DeepDyve- Poem Without a Gazelle, and: The Warp, and: At the Gate, and: Poem for a Daughter III
POEM WITHOUT A GAZELLE
Waiting for the doctor for a room the latesttest results for the iv nurse to finallythread the catheter into the veinso the test can start for the valet to findand bring your car for today's exam to sayyou're doing alright at least for your ageWaiting isn't how I planned to spendthese years but then when did my plansshape what happened except maybe as rowingagainst the tide might help a person landsomewhere downstream oh well a gazellehad been scheduled to show up a fewlines back to fill the drab and emptywaiting room door but Nannette appeared insteadin cheerful printed scrubs to say you were okaythe test went well and you know her voice and facedid give off something of the veldt's sere grace. [End Page 24]
THE WARP
Everything rusts, warps, settles off-centeraskew. I ask you, Is this what I meantto make of myself? Except what's enteredthe cracks in the smooth facade of my intentis bright—unforeseen as moonlight'sbody in the radiant dark. Rusted solid,I am stuck in spots I had set all my mightagainst, unaware when love's slow heat oxidizedme to what I said I didn't want.Bent to the daily make and keep of mother, wife,I thought myself a "shrinky-dink"—the lifebaked out of me, my juices spent. What wentwas only blinding rush and noise. I'll takewhat's here—loss and what it made of me, what it let me make. [End Page 25]
AT THE GATE
Say you are not watching people take offtheir shoes, put their belongings ona conveyer, empty their pocketsof change. Say you are wearing
an extravagant silk scarf,oversized sunglasses, a brilliantsmile. No searches standbetween you and the silver
jet warming its enginesat the gate. Butno. The men keeptaking off their jackets,
the line inches forward,all of us barefoot, bareheaded, heading towardmore lines, the roll call
at each gate. There is noelegant scarf, only a lavendercardigan. No sunglasses,just your private smile
at your daughterplanning her wedding andyour same blessed husbandhours ahead. No movie Idylwilddeparture, but KCI's concrete [End Page 26]
terminal—an actualordinary life. [wonderful] [End Page 27]
POEM FOR A DAUGHTER III
No snow today, no two below.No diapers waiting in the pail for bleach.No pail. No wooden house above the two-lane road,no Freewill Baptist Church next door, nocemetery on the point above our bedroom window.No jewelweed, no damp dirt road rising in shade,no poison ivy, no view of the Big Sandy as yet unseenfrom the end of that trail. No weight, alivein my arms, no new-broken ground thick with garden beanswrapped in morning glory vines. Nothing twines hereexcept stillness broken by her call. They're not hereeither, and yet that baby and her daughter calling,their tale about the broken washer fills the living roomwith voices, brings back that forty-year gone snow,the smelly pail, the garden beans, the jewelweed.Changed bodies—hers and mine—marked by birthsand deaths, bad hips, a grandmother's imperfectspine singing down the chromosomes. What isn'there? What is? This August heat, cicada whir,a cricket by the door, and everything unseen. [End Page 28]
Leatha Kendrick is the author of four books of poetry, including Almanac of the Invisible. Her essays, poems and fiction has appeared widely in journals and anthologies, including The Baltimore Review, The Southern Women's Review, Appalachian Heritage, and in other publications. She leads workshops at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Kentucky, where she is part of their Author Academy faculty.
