Poetry: Nanette Rayman
Beautiful girl grieves for her father
Daily,
I'd see her
flickering beneath cherry trees
in her bubble-
round rain-boat: eyes mocha silver-dollars
the word help
written in water colors across
her forehead
nothing stirred
but a moth hung
on a lamp
I waved to that girl
she waved back
flying
like a chrysalis without scale or quaver
magically eerie brew of sodium
They'd have her shuffle
nude, flamingo
in a nut ward, scouring
movies and magazines for
her lost face
the word whyme?
painted pointillism across
her blackberry lips
pressed to his
paper ones
leaving no trace
With Dionysus
flimsy strap of her sundress falls
she loosens the top button
to let in eternity
another potato-moth's
white parting, she wants to breathe all
into her body, loosen lilies from trumpets,
flock to mutter and chatter of fingers, given
to forgotten language
finite world unravels
as a thread, as ginger, as air, light
as angel cake causing
willow branches to sway, as if their weight
held the weight of stilled water, held her
near the surface, constellations glimmering
she lies down with stones to vanish,
verse and the cadence of tragedy on lips
she lies down in havoc—infinite
armed silhouette flailing the underbelly
though she's been waiting and preening
all her life, how little it has to do with
this fauna, how much she knows
transformation from this element
to another is a mystery.
Copyright © 2002 Nanette Rayman
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