I Eat Poetry

Rome

Behind the drapes and thousand-year-old door
We strained to see beyond the chapel's grille
And saw nothing but shadow shapes until
Our eyes adjusted. Then Demon and Whore
Rose on one wall, roaring for Beelzebub,
And dragged their fingernails through obscene crowds.
But rings of saints chanting in frescoed clouds
Gazed upward from the other wall, they rubbed
Their fingertips on Mary's hem. You stood
Alone a moment, your figure partly hid
Among those figures; and seeing you amid
That opulence of death, I understood
The wooden crucifix with Christ portrayed
Sagging in fear and in his downcast eyes
His sudden knowledge that to recognize
One's father, Father, is to be afraid.

by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

Winter Apples

I open the kitchen window like an eye:
Our hearts hang in the naked apple boughs
All tumbledown with worms that grind and cry,
Sisters, it's time that one of you takes down

The dead man's clothes blown stuff upon the line.
He isn't here. And now his laughter stops
Rattling the teacups, now his tears, not mine,
Drip from my chin onto the countertop,

Little mirrors of that summertime we saw
An August evening's metamorphosis:
On our hot porch, a snake unhinged his jaw,
A toad half swallowed in his fatal kiss,

Twin heads and double tongue that cursed our door.
Now apples black with frost cling to the bough,
And all around this house the cold grass stirs
And breathes that frog's blue sob, Oh take me now.

by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

Nightfishing

The kitchen's old-fashioned planter's clock portrays
A smiling moon as it dips down below
Two hemispheres, stars numberless as days,
And peas, tomatoes, onions, as they grow
Under that happy sky; but though the sands
Of time put on this vegetable disguise,
The clock covers its face with long, thin hands.
Another smiling moon begins to rise.

We drift in the small rowboat an hour before
Morning begins, the lake weeds grown so long
They touch the surface, tangling in an oar.
You've brought coffee, cigars, and me along.
You sit still, like a monument in a hall,
Watching for trout. A bat slices the air
Near us, I shriek, you look at me, that's all,
One long sobering look, a smile everywhere
But on your mouth. The mighty hills shriek back.
You turn back to the hake, chuckle, and clamp
Your teeth on your cigar. We watch the black
Water together. Our tennis shoes are damp.
Something moves on your thoughtful face, recedes.
Here, for the first time ever, I see how,
Just as a fish lurks deep in water weeds,
A thought of death will lurk deep down, will show
One eye, then quietly disappear in you.
It's time to go. Above the hills I see
The faint moon slowly dipping out of view,
Sea of Tranquillity, Sea of Serenity,
Ocean of Storms . . . You start to row, the boat
Skimming the lake where light begins to spread.
You stop the oars, midair. We twirl and float.

I'm in the kitchen. You are three days dead.
A smiling moon rises on fertile ground,
White stars and vegetables. The sky is blue.
Clock hands sweep by it all, they twirl around,
Pushing me, oarless, from the shore of you.

by Gjertrud Schnackenberg