Deborah Boe

[arielblue.livejournal.com]

Jigsaw Puzzle

An entire day spent scrutinizing
these pieces of a Paris boulevard.
First -- all pieces with a straight edge
fitted together on the borders. Then
clumps of pieces of identical color
or pattern. Looking at the picture
on the box is cheating, but I always
look. Then I know, for instance,
which border is up, which down.
Pieces of clouds look unlike themselves,
some white, some gray, but they belong
together. Pieces of wrought-iron fence,
vertical black after vertical black.
There are parts meant to fool me,
cuts so similar I try and try
to link them. But the hem of a lady's dress
does not belong to the clouds. No matter
how long I insist. Sooner or later I need
an intermission. I walk outside.
I lie on the lawn with the sun.
Some things belong together. Some don't.
I wonder. Will I ever learn this?

from Poetry from Sojourner: A Feminist Anthology, ed. by Ruth Lepson with Lynne Yamaguchi (University of Illinois Press, 2004)

You can hear me read this poem in this phone post from my own journal.