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A collection of poetry
by Patricia Wellingham-Jones
from Mongolian Art Exhibit
I turn a corner, stunned now by faces /
on the wall—masks of deities, shamans, /
in papier-mâché, carved wood, stuffed skin. /
Black brows pull down over glaring eyes, /
red mouths stretch in snarls or gentle smiles.
(more...)
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The Courtship
by Kathryn Ugoretz
Hot water fills
the sink. In the cupboard
there’s a small jar
of mushrooms, quiet
in brine
for that ghost
longing to be fed.
Why despise
the woman I was—the body
quickening not quite
her own? My daughter has started
to tell time, while I ache
for the crescent
moon, the last plate, washed
and dried.
What did I know then
of the nature of my own desires?
~
He said he wanted to open me up
and watch my heart beat. I despised
my innocence, his blind
hunger for it. My sacrum pressing
towards the table’s edge—
his passion forming me
into the sublime.
I named it love, that longing
to descend as he practiced a shocked
pleasure the blade the burn
of him as my eyes grazed
spines on his shelves
Kant Rilke Heidigger
my body tied to the table.
When he the first entered, I imagined
a balloon leaving the green earth
and loathed my mind for the cliché.
I had fondled the thought
of him—older, wiser—his adoration
a strange cocktail,
until it became ordinary—act
of sacrifice, rage knotting
my wrists, stainless steel
testing skin, the cellar’s boxes
draped with dark
cloth, exposed
pipes channeling a damp
pulse. I resented his handwriting fixed
in margins, sentences marked
with blue ink. Curled in his arms
near firelight, I said I wanted
to go home. To be forgiven.
He angered the body
to him spread and bent forth
to a snarling you bitch
you owe me this:
My mind shifted through stone
passages left the body
against the table and hurried
into the cedars. I slept near
a row of mushrooms breaking
the green floor.
~
I cannot wait until he’s dead
to find a way back to rue
St Louis, the oak that shades
the creperie, its raised roots
cradling a British cannonball.
It was summer. I was a student
in a walled city. A French
braid a peach dress the world
an apricot in an open
hand. Our empty
plates smeared
with sauce,
he spoke of 18th century
architecture
while I pocketed
an acorn. It lives
in a shoebox
with old letters, scraps
of lace, desire
for warm bread. The night
will dry the dishtowel, the sliced
moon agree:
it is so difficult
to distinguish passion from despair.
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Kathryn Ugoretz's work is published in Madison Review (winner of the Phyllis Smart Young Poetry Prize), Blue Mesa Review, Sonora Review and forthcoming in Bellingham Review. She also received second honorable mention from the Dana Awards and was a “Discovery”/The Nation Award semi-finalist. |
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