Steven Rood © 2003 All Rights Reserved
Steven Rood © 2003 All Rights Reserved
Joseph Cornell On A Cloudy Day Makes Plans Over Pie
All in all I was chambered to the music.
I had more in my mind than flop. Questions I had
big answers to. And a world that would begin
floating out of this one when I opened the next door.
Thank god, thank god. It’s hard to imagine anything
but lesser light under the drop
of this sky. Ta dum, ta dum. Fa la, la, la.
I know what I believe in isn’t on the menu, in italics
or bold on the program’s page two. Floors and floors up
last night I lived in a dream.
The rain was just the rain. I was in love
by the time I woke. It’s easy, of course, to wake up anywhere
living the life you were just in. I had more than enough
presence to know where I was. January, an opera and a couple
lifetimes later.
Under my arm I had letters. My face kept time on my mood.
I made my way quick. Tamara, I believe,
by then returned, slipped by in the same red dress
she wore years ago for good-bye, for New York, for an opening
glance. And on her unbuttoned chest, the sign of weather.
On her skin, an old gold sun. It was August. Ta dum. Ta dum.
Even in my sleep I love you is a stone
on my tongue. The days turn to each other and speak
French words between my thoughts. Every crowded wing
waits on a wire near the window, through the skylight
above my bed. When I bargain good-night, good-night,
the sky,
sparrow by sparrow,
turns from here to there—
a boy’s blue
jacket, a coordinate, a fancy
spoon and a broken mirror,
row after row of empty,
undone windows.
Chris Young
Copyright © 2004
Chris Young’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Taint, Samsara Quarterly, Stirring, MiPo, Miller's Pond, The Muse Apprentice Guild, and Wind. She has received a grant from the Kentucky Arts Council. Chris lives in Eugene, Oregon and teaches tennis.
