ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

Four Poems
by Sharon Kraus


Re- 
 
a series of anecdotes
from which I (this I, an I) might deduce 

*

anecdote because how to derive symbol
(boredom with weather
vegetation topography cellular organisms
     (their mind of multiplic-)
(O David, with that lump on your throat
swallowing you —) ) —as though a river
meant! (divider without ethics) 

*

Sometimes I ignore right-from-wrong.
as for the anecdotes, well. 

                    If someone else loved my child I might
                    leave occasionally. That ol' you-and-me-versus,
                    hello there. Thought I'd buried that. Recur,
                    resist 

*

Oh, why bother to finish something if you know how it'll 

e.g. a biopic —say, George Sand, Glenn Gould —
just stay for the neurotic bits. 

*

                    Returning to the stumble-place beside the pebbles
                    14 times he traversed
                    leapt hopped stepped
                    subsequently, even then not bored enough to leave, but dis-
                    tractable
                                 A measure of how difficult to enter the world
and to remain — 

*

                     That's the song you wanted to dance to,
                     the child says to himself
                                  Reveal : the falsity of
the first person. 

                                  Regard : The capacious second person
                       (also, darling, come home, won't you, I addressed my bespoused) 

*

The pothole jogged the toy from the child's grasp and upsettedly
out of reach; and though the toy was restored to him, arose a wail: You want
to go back! meaning, Return to the loss-place!
Meaning, how to live, having been left 

                    (I allow myself to utter, when he (darling)'s safely away)
                    (longing to feel the former desire, I repeat such words)
                    (inside, the damage to the world; in its light) 

*

Underneath all the mail was the Welcome mat, sodden, refulgent
Not until the letters were lifted did the scent

 
cause 
 
He's tossing wood chips.
             Pile.
                Pile.
Usually there's no thing covered up
that one would regard as a
buried thing. 

After the chase, I rested. 

                                                                       During gestation his death
                                                                       knitted into each cell
One subject after another
turns out to be not about itself,
accumulating evidence of precursors (the wish for the pure : 

—  
 
In the boat someone taught me
how to hook a minnow : as close to
laterally through one eye through
to the other,
               roughly a T despite
the curve and barb. A highest-pitch note 

                   sustained         for a long                      (then the motor started) 

—

                                                                  Even before the egg is sparked, it sparks
                                                                  for four divisions readyreadyreadyready 

he wouldn't come. he ran
down the incline past the sidewalk to the
curb 

(our neighbor uses the word naughty,
overlooking its naught-) 

I 

his father pats his head after a charming refusal
to eat dinner; Sometimes
banging is petting, says the boy 

(Sometimes is present the less-rageful parent) 

—
for example,
X times I have permitted myself
to yank him           my hand on his arm
back. Nothing like that feeling. Nothing. 

the purpose of sand, though, is to be dirt for the
dump truck. transported to a different site. 

bodily herding the cat from its sunsleep,
the boy says, I'm pushing her AWAY. Delight
writes itself on his face. Curtain stripe. Yowl. 

I find myself unable to erase my print or my errors. Trying to look through
I find is looking at. There is the theme of what-to-do-with-dirt 

(My mother tried to erase herself but it was her young heart's cracking that finally did it.

 
Part ner 
 
The way an egg breaks into the mixture
    first it was defined, a whole
    then it is in pieces    (galaxy)
    its structure changed.  

I have been given my wish and so should
be happy.      Was there a rupture?
(Not an exact correspondence. Nevertheless,
something has broken.) 

The wind has been visited upon me. It might
be retribution, or cake.
     (batter, ha ha.) 

    I think the task is to turn from
, but internally, in the chamber the shoulders hunch over,
something solid is revolving 

Q: Why liken rage to systems of weather?
A:
A: Well, you get to use the word "front."
A: Afterward, there's aftermath. And the hush
            from downed power lines. 

My love, I have lost my love
I said internally on the B41. We
were going to the zoo, my child and I.
Hens, and two hungry sheep moving their lips
and then I yanked the boy away from his spilling the germicidal soap
with its Only One sign. In anger I pulled him
not recalling that he will 

Later, painted horses ("'Nanny', gift from Charles Baker, 1968")
gliding up while simultaneously revolving
a cheerful tune I couldn't name 

the child rolls into his sleep and 

             the way you lean into a door to open
             : press onto through into
             oh nothing           said the husband ("house"). I don't want to talk about it.
                          said the husband. I don't want to go there
meaning threat, and the threat of that. 

             There's always the analogies to explosive materials
             (but two people are probably not a politics
             or a miner and a purposeful excavation Though "cavity" is right.
)
Bent backwards         I hated him back.   

but yearning for the child, sometimes when he's sitting beside me. 

cutting out magazine pictures for collage projects, one is presented
with the problem of what to excise (For example, if one dispenses with the snow
the red Acura looks, not stuck, but still
 

marionette show 
 
like when the swan and butterfly say
they'll be friends forever       the gesture 

introducing a terrible               underneath the wings the 

heart
pulsing— well, the idea of the heart, anyway 

puppets spoken by grownups (we
                                        're trying to re cover 

what was it?
                                        replanting it in the next us,
the not us, who should be us, who'll be
come us— after all, the kids  

don't bother about forevering —they're threeing, fouring —I wish him to 

think of me         Another problem is, how long
is a butterfly's lifespan, after all? 

                                        enough of breathing, 

goes the smallest voice 

In the darkened house
             —Why are you having such trouble saying Thank you? 

Can you say? 

               After a while the butterfly, long tired of creeping upon leaves
& made to consider being stepped on, spits nectar at the flower sun air 

swan finds that the butterfly
ought love its true friend better
and swallows it (off stage perhaps) 

                                                                   The child sits on the bench
                                                                   very still. He's slid away from his mother
                                                                   there's a gaping 

That night the father walks out —the window
has not been opened wide enough it has been repeatedly closed 

between life and art are strings
flapping our arms for us our jaws  

even unto death                                         he'll hate me and go on living
when thwarted he says Go away, mommy; go away forever 

replicating the thunder of the mother's rages 

and then the next morning, his head in the shirt's neck hole, Are we going to       pennsylvania?
What's in pennsylvania? 

pencils