Triplet Writ

Fringe ArtsJenny Leigh Dancer — Published November 2, 2010

Smooth It Over


Smooth over what comes apart,
smooth it over,
and with gentle hands she does
just that: one palm flat against
her mouth, holding everything in.
Who dreams of stars any more?
Maybe she does, her eyes wide,
focused on some distant point.
Smooth, smooth. And her hand
brushes his face, the groove
of cheek bone, flesh, hollow
of the eye, that ridge—
and she finds herself slipping
down and away.
Who has any time for strawberries
and cream? Not her, surely;
she sits in the kitchen with her skirt
all white seaweed in tatters
around her. No time for sewing, none
for putting things back together.
Just smooth over,
she knows, just smooth over.
Who loves with a fire to burn all else?
Perhaps her, but a fire can’t face
a storm without the certain knowledge
that rain will put it out. And the message
he left on her machine was just:
“Hi” and empty space, and “So I heard you are
doing just fine. That’s good. Well,
Sorry I missed you. Maybe we will talk again
some other day.”

Then there is so much endless
grey and white, and she can only
smooth over
so much.




Hey, Killer Smile


Hushed in hues:
radio jazz, vivid blood,
fear which pricks
and swells the skin.
Saw your smile, its too-whiteness
cleaving the blue hour
right in half, bloom of lips
torn silk. Kid skin hands,
smoothing the dress hem,
pulling and teasing
calves and thighs.
How’d you break her resolve?
Hot water, soft kisses
which snared her and melted
the clothes right off her body.
She was sugar and she dissolved
in the grooves of your tongue.
Someday they’ll dig
her bleach white bones
from the sweet earth
and you’ll smile again,
all teeth in the dark.




To the Crescent in Winter


To the poplars in the ravine
and the teenage boys smoking
on their lawn, and the wolfhound
prowling the yard,
and the chilled pond with its silent
surface, and the rooftop snow peaks:

Surely, on days like this
I am an amateur ascetic,
climbing the loneliest mountains
suburbia has to offer.

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 12, published November 2, 2010.