It’s not a beginning I’m after—
my fetalled memory mimicked
each evening in heated bathing rituals.
(Tonight I cut my right knee
twice with a fresh razor, triple-
bladed for improved results).
Nor is it an end—
flour-beetles spent in spelt
cursing a kitchen coated
with little legs and bleach—
every cupboard cleared like a beach
when someone yells “shark”.
Tonight I’m looking for the middle—
some well-fashioned spell near
an already centred crust
similar to the common petunia’s
flawed shadow echoed in my mirror—
a light-weary shape steadying me.
My umbrella-body sprawls
chin up, head flush with porcelain
nothing holding but a knee.
3 comments:
Like what you're trying to do here. Great first line and like the aside of the second stanza. The greater implications of trying to find a middle, which hover around the poem. How the reader works to makes connections. Keep working on this, you're onto something good.
I'm having some confusion trying to figure out what exactly I'm trying to say in the last 3 stanzas. I like the last one, but must link up the flower to the middle, to the knee, to, well, yah, to what.
Mmm. I agree with Tracy in that I'm not quite sure what's going on here, but I also find myself willing to follow the poem most anywhere...
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