Waltz of the Midnight Miscarriage, and: What I Know, and: Reading Sappho in a Wine Bar
Rent from DeepDyve- Waltz of the Midnight Miscarriage, and: What I Know, and: Reading Sappho in a Wine Bar
Waltz of the Midnight Miscarriage
My little empire goes to sleep around me.The cupcake frosting softens in the streetlamp'syellow light. The beer cools in the fridge.Bugs swirl to a delicate halt around the bulbsof my many lamps, leggy halos, and I wonder,what does it feel like, the helix of heatthey weave to their burning death?The clock waltzes toward one and I tickin my bed, an untethered cable, a live wiredangling in this kingdom of stillness,of thievery. Even the one who bleeds outbetween my legs is silent tonight, her heartundone from my beating. The gobletslowly drips dry, the cut flowers crumbleever inward. A small death. Bobby pinsscattered, their numbered litmus,across the wooden field of the bureau.
What I Know
Lilies scent the hallway with the deathof beautiful things. A pork chop frieson its own in the kitchen. Furnituregrows larger in the darkening rooms.Should I describe the fruit in the bowl? [End Page 147] The hot breath of the lamp beside me?You know all of this. Below my feetthe moles dig deeper, searchingtoward the core. Do they hear the earthturning, sense the heat close beneath them?That's what it was to share a bed, to knowthe one still point I moved toward, circlingthrough the strata of my own grave earth.The bird you named knows to sing at dusk.What do I know? Not the rise and fallof bow against violin. Notthe many names for the herbs that jointhe twilight. Certainly notthat what is dead will live again.
Reading Sappho in a Wine Bar
Today I promised you a poem entitled"Mowing the Lawn Out of Spite"in honor of your husband who woulddo any job poorly if it might twist
your heart open to him. The wine glassesare lined up so perfectly. Hard to believethey might ever be broken, but each one will.Think of the delicate, the fragile, the weak:
a beetle's wing, a swing's slow arc, your verysmallest child. You watched your husband dragthe lawnmower across the backyard, sawhis lips curse it through the window each time [End Page 148]
it stalled. If you listened closely you couldhear his voice, the sound of glass crackingbeneath your feet. Or perhaps he was cursingyou, your joy on this first day of spring.
Keetje Kuipers has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Oregon Literary Arts, and Soap Stone. She was also the recipient of the 2007 Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in West Branch, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Willow Springs, among others. You can hear her read her work at the online audio archive From the Fishouse. She lives in Missoula, Montana.
