| Two
Poems
by Andrea
Baker
A
Love Story
We were sitting by the park eating fried leaves with a candle and
a match when we had the café when we were addicts
hidden away we were selling dime bags on the street when
we were bringing cars leaves on a picnic they
praised our gifts and begged that we should eat them this
is when I was wearing a soft pink top and hard pink shorts you'd never
seen me in shoes you were wearing sandals and
running and tossing leaves and white paper chased
behind you at your same speed that was when
we lived on a farm and cared for all the little chickens and their
eggs that was when we were constructing a nest from stray
branches broken debris and lint from our hair
dryer the clothes washer was working just fine and we
were living on an island that was when we were opening
a coconut with a blade and I was wearing a skirt of dried
weeds some with their flowers still at my knees you had
one hand at your hip the other to your side
and we had a big apartment behind the trees where we hired
the cook to make our beds which kept collapsing we were
inventing the shapes though they kept falling down in shambles I
dreamt of a house so flimsy and sad set back on its own
lawn without a path or a drive the house was too urgent
then you wondered through the lens cap door
the rain was newly fallen
every drop desperate for an image of you
Whose Hunt has Yet to Fair:
A script for Gilda and her house
Masks: what an execution would call for, or the scarecrow; cloth
with a rope tied neck, and scissor cut holes. Everyone wants to so
everyone wears one.
House
Push me down again. The point is the mini chairs. The furniture is
lacking. The point is that we replace what is lacking. The guard takes
his place. The teeth chatter
at his shadow. Everything is in jail. The colorist is broken.
Gilda
They embroider, prim, thin lace around my slender sleeve
Their eyes do not meet upon center
Though they are they who do not speak of such things
They take only of water
House
My whole feet fever. Oh guarding body! I am the reason for everything
you inhabit.
Gilda
Mother has sent a note with the biscuits
There will be no more bread from mother
House
The point is the mini chairs.
Gilda
May I shelter?
House
I have more skin. It just isn't shedding.
Gilda
The snow blows quiet through
I am the moment you will hold me.
Act II
No speaker or a recorded voice
Steam off the body drawn steam off excess eyes Assuming
body, the light
gray flight drawing up. transparent longing. The
steam off eyes rising the
valley. rising is transparent
assuming (body)
the gray light of wind drawn out
assuming
body
Keep your eye off the excess
On the second day of leaves
A princess died of grasses
Act III
House
I have installed the darker glass. You see less of what is happening
below.
Gilda
The best part of language keeps to itself.
House
My whole feet are on fever.
Andrea Baker is Poetry Editor at 3rd
Bed. Her work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in Denver
Quarterly , Drunken
Boat, Fence,
Lit, Vert, How
2 and Volt. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and son. |
