1. THE HISTORY AND THE CIRCUS
My father first took me to the circus
to acquire new theories of colour—so that
the way his mustache fluttered, small grey wing-
less butterfly, when he said words to me
ending in -ous: for the feet of the horse:
castaneous, for the ballerina
of the air who as she concentrated kept
her lips cretaceous—that faded from red,
hungry for blood to rush back up in them
when parted slightly for a kiss. We threw
the popcorn in the violet trenches where
the short men waddled nightly in gauze shorts.
I ate my fingernails—trimming along
the white moons until each of them was gone.
What type of citrus? my father would ask,
would best resemble the flames burgeoning
from the fire-eater’s mouth? A grapefruit,
shaddock, citrus paradisi. Even
in my bedroom fire was the forbidden
fruit: I was six and lit candles as if
I could burn down a house and all of its
outbuildings with a single tilted wick.
2. CAPTIVITY
My mother in the trundle bed smoking
until she fell asleep—now, this is when
I stole her lighters, and then one by one
at night I would display on my old quilt
the holy marketplace: the red, the gray,
and the yellow, translucent as a peach—
veined plastic, silvery-knobbed, safety-latched—
I broke through those so early—then as if
conducting a parade: the three-ring act,
the flick after flick after flick. I held
the light hostage as if it were a husband made
to dance, the palatial places of his
colour: blue unhourglass, the outline
of it, the mountain of blond and of heat, so like
a cone, my lips drawing closer, closer
until I stopped and slowly drawing back
my tongue, I held my breath and blew it out.
3. HAIR STORY
My mother went blind the night I cut off
my hair—what was once the russet of cooked
tuber, imperial and expansive
as a vetch, long enough to sit on, to
burn by accident on the elements
heated redly on the stove—ends coiling
up secretly, only to be noticed
later as I lay in bed, combing it
with my fingers. I had no desire
for boyishness. Which is what my mother
called it—whispered to my father before
I’d even set down the shears. How will she
fall in love now? she demanded, weeping.
How will she plait it, how will she turn it
round and round until a bun? It was then
that she blinked her eyes and did not again
open them. Her eyelids—always a smooth
lake, unswimmable, replaced her seeing—
and now, in less of danger, I began
to play with fire as one plays with a man.
4. ONOMATOPOEIA
So she resigned to imagine vision
by its sound. A long garden of midnight
Jessamine became the cull of the wind
filtered through a thousand pointed petals.
The rusty blush of my cheeks when we passed—
walking arm in arm—each streetlight blazing,
each beeswax candle lonely and erect
in a baker’s shop window: the faster trot
of my heels, quickened heartbeat, nervously
my voice—ugly creature—We’re almost home.
My father learned to touch her forehead first
before a kiss. Otherwise, she’d startle.
Otherwise, she’d swat him away as if
fruit flies disturbing in large quantities
the dark nest of her hair. She prayed nightly
that I would dress myself accordingly:
my bodice whaleboned tight, the arrasene
embroidered with sugarberries—leaves tamed
by winding vines—my pink undergarments
unmentionable. I still could not play
the harpsichord. I knew about flowers
almost nothing. And each evening after
supper, I sat by the fireplace, hands cupped
one to the other, my body nothing
but itself. Expectant, soaped clean, untamed.
5. VESTAL VIRGIN
I did not call it Agni and I did not
wander with the smallest sprigs of my hair
leaping out like sparks from a pink laurel
of kindling. I did not arrange offerings
of beans, of dried calla lilies and their
stamens, pressed. Ours was a purer love.
My father, to care for my mother, stopped
bringing me to the circus. They spent hours
candlelit, in bed, my father trying
to describe for her each shadow casting
itself to the wall. To her, they sounded
like silence. And this is when I removed
what thin clothing I wore—as they were up
among the blankets—this is when I slipped
cold-shouldered through the door and went outside
in search of perpetual lamps, forever
ashless, starved for the wood of the hawthorn.
6. BRIGHT STAR
There is very little to be said of
sacrifice. That it is difficult but
desired, a matter of readiness.
Of preparation. For seventeen days
I practiced watching the cirrostratus
clouds, waiting for a break of yellow light.
I fashioned no devices—fancied no
mirrors, poked no pin-holes through cordovan.
I merely went outside. I merely looked
up at the sun, shining like a fire
opal, contained within itself—I stared
and stared and stared. The breath in me captive
as the seeds at an apple’s core. I walked on out
through the sky, as if along the tightrope
of the driveway, my eyes closed or open,
my heart a hundred versions of itself,
burgeoning again, again in the dark.
___
Sarah Crossland is a Poetry MFA candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she teaches creative writing and serves as the Managing Editor of Devil’s Lake. Her website is www.sarahcrossland.com.
Monday, March 26th, 2012 1:21 pm
Categories: Issue 5.4, Poetry
