ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

 
FROM LAW OF FIVES
by Tina Cane

VII. BUS DEPOT

Of junkie lovers
Jehovah Witnesses

plus Maeve
eating Cheese Doodles from a fun-size bag

fingers
dusted orange
                                    as when age ten
in the butterfly
tent at the zoo

Monarchs alighted
on her head/ a trembling coronet

Maeve rushed to touch/ smothering
instead their saffron powder wings/ ash-like

they drifted from Maeve's braids to the grass

where her bag lunch sat untouched
but by flies coptering through the haze




XI. INTERLUDE
                      from Le Carnet de Lost Dogs

a) Physicist William Gilbert shared an interest in magnetism
    with Queen Elizabeth I. He was her doctor until her death.
    So perhaps, the two exhanged thoughts on the properties
    of air, the art of warfare or the nature of light and water.

    But did either of them know that a degenerating retina
    looks like a lightning storm--orange in the eye--or that
    a red sky--a solar perturbance--is the cosmic heart bursting
    with fear and joy?

    The doctor and the Queen did hear that men were
    charting the heavens. Heaven knows Gilbert knew
    the Earth is a magnet. And he told the Queen.


b) Dream: an image of truth


c) Not the same moon.





XIV. LE CARNET DE LOST DOGS

Contains names like:

             Hera/ Luna/ Lupo/Mack

plus the contents
of an anarchist's shack:


            Tator Tots and cocoa/ a Raven Arm handgun/
           Growing Up Absurd/ illustrated Birds of America


Le Carnet de Lost Dogs
is a totem

to detail/ stray and beautiful/ messages
like:

          Believe in Chris

(the t in Christ having fallen)

off a roadside church sign
onto a page
                      in Maeve's mind/ raw gem

for the gleaner's shrine to moondog days




XV. RIFLE RANGE

What was the weight
in breath and heat of that boy

on the ground with Maeve
at the rifle range/ her ponytail

a fan spread beneath him/ what shape
the constellation of gnats overhead/ Orion

gleaned from her queasy bliss
or the line of a strong wrist

with which to cock a rifle/ what of the centerfold
nailed to a practice post/ creamy breasts

intact/ the rest blighted by bullets/ what weight
the boy/ what shape the rest/ what line of breath

arching with Maeve/ what constellation



XVII. INFINITE RANGE
                      Gravity has an infinite range. Stars feel gravity
                      from other stars, galaxies  feel gravity from other galaxies...
                      there is no way to get rid of the force of gravity.

                                                                                  --The Laws List


Released prematurely from the apparatus
Evel Knievel shot across a canyon

in Idaho state
straight into Snake River/ then rose

siren-like in white
leather and tassles/ spangled

with water/ waving his helmet
like a torch
           he burned

through televised
space/ a message to Maeve

about bullfights and pageants
and places that would have them

 

Tina Cane completed her Master's in French Literature at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. She teaches French, English and Creative Writing, and is a writer-in-the-schools. This is also her second year as a resident poet with the Academy of American Poets On-line Poetry Classroom. The work in this publication is excerpted from her book-length poem, Law of Fives. Tina's poems have appeared in several journals including Hanging Loose, Salt Hill, and Barrow Street. Her prose poems in French are published in the anthology Laisse de Mer. She lives in Brooklyn.