POETRY | Anna Marie Laforest

POETRY by Anna Marie Laforest White

A sampling... (Copyrighted material, January 2016)

FIRST TASTE

Sitting

down on knees

creaky as the lid

of her satin-lined trunk

an old, old woman holds

in a last calm moment,

her mother's lavish bridal dress

and long kid leather gloves,

their rows of pearls like the ones

she'll see, perhaps, tomorrow;

she holds and holds and holds

such a gift this holding,

and here she thought she had nothing left

to lose.

LUNCH DATE ADAGIO

So animated
you won’t remember what you just ate
every dripping word
at the edge of appetite,
his eyes cross the table
and break
into yours,
honest vowels
caress and flatter,
one
corner of his mouth
smiles
as you chatter

mighty arms
in rolled up sleeves,
chalky hands
from placing brick
offer you a light
in finger plie –
you pull a breath and look
along his elbow

he makes your previous men
cartoons.

SUCCESS

Hair modeled

like a dipped cone

pace clipped

speech honed

in finely chiseled

tongue

hands flash

smartly sleeved

underscoring

well-buttoned points

only your eyes

sucked back and strung

with stain

betray you

like dishrags

in the drain

at home -

sticky

brittle

wrung.

VIETNAM WALL

Alsonso, Bobby, Charles,
reduced to charcoal rubbings
of the names their mothers gave,
red and white bouquets
propped with blue-ribboned beer
and a laminated photo or two
streaked from humidity,
thick with visitors’ accents
in Washington -
the wall gets taller than those
who walk it.

Short gray ladies
with green memorial shirts
tucked round their roundness
like altar boys on ladders
point at James or John
who lay only yesterday

it seems
with the widows in the folding seats
waiting for the service
and crumpled now from a different heat,
or brushed their christening lips
along a daughter’s forehead
that burns today with migraine
as she traces the wall

with her eyes
pretending her father’s not a ghost.

Morgan horses and park police
salute
the Three Fighting Men
while on the edges
with same sad boots and heavy stare
clusters of vets
“hey buddy!” each other

and the planes fly
what do they care
these Infantry “Tropic Lightnings”
and regiment “Wolfhounds”
they faced their shadows
long before
today’s low clouds
keep reflections out
of the monument pool.

And somewhere in the flags and tents
a started service ends.

DROUGHT

Long slow spate

of breezeless summer

uninspired trees

bow and curl

to no water

falling free

no white birds call

the unidentified me’s

only

under-churned bubbles

of river head

popping in the sun.

I float, smooth and raw

like dry sticks

children skin

and fling

from little middles

to the river -

Grace

is more

than a swimming thing.

JINGLE DANCE

White buckskin dress
long fringe hanging
from outstretched arms
fifty rows of beads
above her dancing feet
toe toe toe heel toe toe,
the dress is fashioned
after a great grandmother’s dream
her lost warrior
paint dried across his face
ax fallen from his hand
and 300 bullet shells
now rows and rows of jingle
flashing silver across the dress
toe toe toe heel toe toe
to the thunder drum
and lightning stick
she dreamed the otter strip
woven in his braids
long before jingle
when all that fell was rain.

Women surround her
drawn to the sacred dress,
turns out the pounded silvers
are tobacco lids from cans