– FROM THE GHOST OF YESTERDAY
DIPTYCH: PINCH
– Knit & Purl
At six (when they told me I was too young)
I taught myself to knit using two pencils
And a ball of string. With the glaze and gaze
Of time, I see it was essential to make
Something from nothing—to weave a basket
Of seaweed, test lightning, bake challah,
Unwind a cocoon, challenge the status quo.
Never to drift and purl downstream with ease.
≠
– Purl & UnKnit
Whatever is most difficult must be tried. Purl
Instead of knit. Find the prize in Cracker Jack
Without tearing the box. Do tour jetés en pointe
Until mustered out. Swim until done in.
If creatures lurk beneath the hawthorne, catch
Them, pinch out their dark secrets. And when
It's time to put pen to paper—when I put pen to
Paper—I must be ruthless: unknit and imperil.
GREAT RIVER REVIEW
Photo by Vivienne St. John
TROMPE L'OEIL
Grapes to eat, a fresh-killed hare, bloodied
and dripping, white lilacs. Delft dish—
does a willow weep at its center,
the one that will not hold? All these things
placed by unseen hands—rifle propped,
blossoms strewn across butcher block;
yet the flowers have no scent, grapes no taste,
windmill or willow won't shift in the wind.
It was a day she thought she could hold and arrange.
Easier than peeling grapes or skinning a rabbit.
This day: hers to spend. Time would have
a taste, distance could be measured.
Slit the canvas and step into a darkened room.
Pull the curtain and throw the spread aside.
A place of no place,
here no dimensional colors glazed by time.
But this morning… the dish empty, fruit shivered
to raisins, the gun spent. No sun, no smile, no touch.
Time is stilled. Don't believe illusion.
There's no story. No picture—no eye nor I.
THE JOURNAL
GOLDFISH: A DIPTYCH
– Science has proven the goldfish
has a memory of a second and a half.
1. TALE OF A GOLDFISH
Look, there's a castle,
submerged so its world magnifies
in water hazed with algae,
but I see willow, sun, a dragonfly.
Look, a castle—
rays of sunlight through its doorway,
a mermaid on a rock
amid roots and burnished shells.
Look, there's a castle,
and I angle through the door, out the window,
everything static,
yet behind I sense a shadow.
Look—
its distorted world is pooling,
until I see a rock with no mermaid,
sense jaws of darkness.
Look, there's...
2. A MAN IS A GOLDFISH WITH LEGS
Look, there's a castle,
where Circe turns seamen to swimming pigs
while the universe expands,
so watch out for solar glare.
Look, there's...
and at its hearth, a clockwise flame,
but below continents of ice,
stress lines.
Look, a castle—
and a pearl at my throat to keep me alive,
yet if there's heat lightning,
Venus will wink at daybreak.
Look—
how Circe takes up the pearl,
and Venus, in morning sun, floats fire and ice,
and may her lightning give you pause.
Some days — it's less than a second.
FIELD MAGAZINE, Fall 2005
Selected for PUSHCART PRIZE XXXI, Best of the Small Presses
Susan Terris
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