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P.J. Nights
10 words for red
tee-shirt and denim skirt,
i’ve lost my shoes and
your bougainvillea kisses
can stay there in the crook
of my arm all night
like a mahogany branch
tapping my windowpane
‘til i throw the sash wide –
no spirits of dead
neighbors, in their stead
fly mad titian angels.
i listen to your tongue
(half ocean-wave, half rouging-
sun) turn ordinary auras
to Hollywoods, dip down
where the madder lake
is deepest. in the alpenglow
evening you beat out lucky
numbers with persistent hands;
beneath unsheathed metal
and blood my heart’s
a vermilion balloon, a fat bag
of gold exploding
into alchemist’s dust. taint me
cinnabar down to my toes,
paint me solferino – the lives
of 40,000 feed a field of mercy –
i arrive in burgeoning pink,
release forgotten purples
collating notes on index cards
I cup hands ‘round a small candlelight
the look in fall when all starts to droop
– the fall stature – I’d try it
once
like a song that ran out of ideas
and came to the end
tupperware isn’t the be-all end-all – it lets go –
I let go of the fruit salad, blueberries rolling
under the frig let ‘em roll with the dust bunnies
leaving callous-building minutes where fingers find strings
and songs only I care about
most times all I’m aware of is the light even as I tilt
my rearview against it because I have to drive
wouldn’t I
if I could
melt against you
a piece of furniture you’d gladly put
in your tangled garden
©2003 by P.J. Nights
P.J. Nights lives in coastal Maine with her family and
various pound pets. She teaches high school astronomy
and physics and is the senior poetry editor of MiPo
Magazine. Her poetry has been published in journals
such as Animus, Penumbra, Blue Fifth Review, Rock Salt
Plum Poetry Review, Stirring, the Slow Trains
anthologies, and the textbook, Language and Prejudice.
Her poem "three parts wormwood, one part Solomon's
Seal" won 1st place in the 2003 (6th annual) Poetry
Super Highway contest.
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