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[penguinboy.livejournal.com]

Beaujolais
by Yerra Sugarman

In my closet her corduroy dress—a burgundy you could say, a Beaujolais. My shadow leaves
me in night's feudal shoe, where even the periodic table can rest. But I'm ruddy-eyed, sleepless.
Furrowed fields of my hands, my mother's jumper was Beaujolais. The blinds rake and sway.
The catalpa tree throws its beans at me. Beans to you! Memory will lay down its acetylene
torch Torturers, doubters, killers: peak not. May welders of recollection solder tears of you.
As life walks me dumb on its leash, I will dig for her, although I have no paws—just a pin.
Insouciant skinny shadow, which covenants break tonight? her jumper was a rose madder
you could say, with a dread need for its dusty gullies to be swept. Tomorrow I will dig 55
years. On my chest she is still young and leans on a dirty stone lion somewhere in France,
with the head cracked in two. Mornings my mother was loath to rise. The pomp of her sun-
lit windows frightened her. I had not wanted to love her life. I did not want to pity her.
I'll look up love. I'll look up pity. I'll look up keep. I will not put words in my mouth.
All of Europe is Beaujolais. I will dig for my mother tomorrow with a pin. Where is my pin?

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[penguinboy.livejournal.com]

Absences
by Donald Justice

It's snowing this afternoon and there are no flowers.
There is only this sound of falling, quiet and remote,
Like the memory of scales descending the white keys
Of a childhood piano--outside the window, palms!
And the heavy head of the cereus, inclining,
Soon to let down its white or yellow-white.

Now, only these poor snow-flowers in a heap,
Like the memory of a white dress cast down...
So much has fallen.
.....................And I, who have listened for a step
All afternoon, hear it now, but already falling away,
Already in memory. And the terrible scales descending
On the silent piano; the snow; and the absent flowers abounding.