That River From The Heart

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

OLD SHOES

Somewhere an old shoe
lieth under a bed—
all dusty
and lost
from its other—
lonely as someone
dead
and searching still
for its mate
in a cadaverous closet
and making death
real for the
abandoned shoe.

____________________

CLOSET MUSING

There’s my good black dress
way at the back
covered with a blouse.
Why keep it?  It’s so old.
It doesn’t fit.  Its shoulders
have a permanent crease
where it has hung for years.
Dry cleaning is not practical
for my life style.  I don’t know
anyone who’d want it,
though it cost a pretty penny
in its day.  Is that why
I always give in at the last
to some nostalgic whim
and leave it hanging,
hard to reach
in back of everything?
I used to wear it dancing
with my rhinestones
and my black high heels.
Look at it now, all crushed
and filled with dust.
Pathetic!  Next time
I gather stuff to give away
I think I’ll give it up.
I’ll never wear it anywhere.
Oh, mirror, look
at these arms, these hips.
                     

(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 1996)

OF FABRIC    

The luxuriance of cloth with its soft folds—I am dressed
in seasons of sunlight and rain. I rustle when I move. My
sleeves reach the floor.

            ~~~

I am invisible to the mirror, which wears its own garment.
I turn one way; it turns another. We are a dance of separation.

            ~~~

Behind us another mirror closes it eyes. We cry reunion to
ourselves. The other mirror opens its eyes and lets us in.
Now we are three.

            ~~~

The fourth mirror is in the closet of the dream; long torn
dresses hang there, the favorite ones in the center. The back
of the closet is the mirror.

            ~~~

I go through the mirror, which closes behind me. I am in
the hall of vanity and illusion. I laugh and cry with the same
sound. There are no more mirrors

_______________________

THE ANGER
(After "The History of Anger, 2006" by Skinner)
 
Stuffed in the closet, a lifetime of hurts and angers.
Can’t shut the door now. The ones at the back
are suffocating. The ones at the front have no room.

And still more rage is supposed to fit. The suffocation
spreads, so the room grows larger to give the closet
room, and the house grows larger to accommodate

the scale. But nothing the mind does alleviates the
hoarding which can’t surrender a single grievance
lest the closet have no more use as a place to hold

the collection: every lost love, every failure, every
law of self broken. How can you still reach in to find
the one you need to polish and treasure. The heart

is about to burst. Two monkeys quarrel in the head.
Everything is mirrored and remembered. The house
is a waddle now—so large it doesn’t even fit itself.

RULES FOR LOVERS (Pantoum)       

There are seven rules to remember:
Be perfect or you will not be loved.
I have a flaw.
I keep forgetting.

Be perfect or you will not be loved.
Be young and you will live forever.
I keep forgetting.
There are mouths in my closet.

Be young and you will live forever.
Be beautiful and no one will ever tire of you.
There are mouths in my closet.
Death is eating all my blouses.

Be beautiful and no one will ever tire of you.
If you are virtuous, you may wear white clothing.
Death is eating all my blouses.
I get so cold in the winter.

If you are virtuous, you may wear white clothing.
Be sensual and you will never lack for lust.
I get so cold in the winter.
My own hands cannot warm my breasts.

Be sensual and you will never lack for lust.
If patient, Luck and Fortune will bring you their trust.
My own hands cannot warm my breasts.
There is a false reflection in the mirror.

If patient, Luck and Fortune will bring you their trust.
Be cunning so as to gather all forces.
There is a false reflection in the mirror.
I am counting my divorces.

Be cunning so as to gather all forces.
I have a flaw.
I am counting my divorces.
There are seven rules to remember.    

      

(first pub. in Piedmont Literary Review, l99l) 

SUFFOCATIONS

I am so cold. I pull on endless dresses. I pull on sleeves
and dark skirts and become small enough to fit in all
of them, until my closet is empty—and it shivers—and
it is only a naked room now, full of whispering.

I am still cold—slipping into dreams which wrap around
me in different textures and patterns—each night I wear
their costumes, and cannot get out of them. There are so
many, and I keep getting caught in all their folds.

______________________

OCCUPATION:  HOUSEWIFE
       
1.      She comes through the tugging children
and the quiet man drinking Scotch
and the long days and nights
crowded with kisses and quarrels.
The summer is upon her like an illness.

2.     She is separating and fading like
a jigsaw puzzle put together
by moist, incomprehensive hands.
Spaces move between her, and in them,
her husband and children
are living their safe lives.
         
3.      She is trying to hold together
till she has thought herself whole again,
but her eyes are surrealistic as
the mirrors she has broken every
time she smiles or cries.
         
4.      (She puts them in the closet with
the birds where they break each other’s
images in the dark.  Love asks her
what that sound is
and she says, mice.)
         
5.       She drinks in the afternoon
when yesterday or tomorrow winds her
as tight as a clock; slow, deep
glasses of something sane and dark;
something to say to the telephone
when she is as easy to open
as a lock.


(first pub. in Caryatic, Volume 11, No. 2) 

BRIDAL

I misread you.  I thought you said love,
I thought you said forever.
I loved your words, believed you—

your touch like a promise.
I said, marry me—You said, I will.
I will, I will, after.

I was left with your words, the
burn of your touch, the lie of your
promise. I don’t believe in words.

After you left,
I put my white dress away.
My closet fills with it.

My mirror laughs at me.
Touch stays, like an admonition,
does not wash off, scolds like a mother.

I mourn what I lost, the sanctity
of trust, the stars from the eyes
—that river from the heart.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

ON THE DAY AFTER DEATH,

We picked up all our dark dresses
from the floor.

We hung them in gaping closets.

We bore into
the burning eyes of the mirror.

We listened to the morning sirens
in their tardy urgencies.

We called name after name
into the fading echo.       

We watched a silent crow
glide past our windows.

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for this lovely collection of poems and photos, and a note that our new Seed of the Week celebrates the season with Moms. Send your poems, photos and artwork about moms of any species (or any other subject) to kathykieth@hotmail.com/.