Take Me Autumn
The last raspberries of autumn
drip with blood,
sing in my bones
as sweetly as the squeal of
the violin bow on string.
Dark chocolate and clementines
are decadent for me,
rich as maple sap
that’s been boiled and boiled
until there’s nothing left but burnt sweet.
Pumpkins are ripe for me
the way my breasts are ripe for
my boyfriend as he
runs hand over pearled mound
again and again and again.
Cat fur is soft as cold-Saturday morning kisses
when there’s nothing to do but lie in
bed,
stroking skin and listening to heart beats.
The bareness of a November birch
strikes me
the way an ovulation cramp pinches,
such beautiful violence.
The skin of the molasses chestnut is
smooth as glass,
flesh like a chicken,
and when it fills my mouth
I have eaten autumn whole,
consumed her fruits greedily,
on fire with my appetite.
Nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon,
allspice, ginger, cocoa and cardamom
sizzle my nostrils sumptuously
leave my skin hot underneath,
whetted for barefoot-midnight dances,
winds that breathe moist and fresh
as dog’s breathe.
Out with the green,
in with the scarlet,
witches dance,
cauldrons brew with turkey soup,
buttered scones on the table,
all the roses stop blooming
and the wind teases with snow on its tip.
But I am here,
ready,
take me Autumn,
take me
and let me burn the way
your leaves burn,
let me bleed
the way your raspberries bleed
and let me dance the night away
barefoot in your courtyard
of dying trees.
I’m the Bride this Time
I’m the bride this time
in strapless-white lace
that’s hard plastered around my torso,
a strand of pearls lazy
around my wrist,
freshly colored streaks of pale-corn blonde
in my hair,
a fragile, ivory net around my face
to hide wide eyes from the groom
so he can’t see my pupils rove
around
looking for an EXIT
that doesn’t come in a neon sign,
(just a safety precaution, I’m sure).
There are the bridesmaids in rosy taffeta
swishing their skirts like little girls,
twinkles in their blush-shimmering eyes
as they look at the groomsmen
who are fixing their sleeve cuffs,
and I think they look happier than I.
The wind is thick like gravy,
the light dim-grey and blue
the bouquets are immaculate white roses and carnations,
my dress is too tight,
the groom is so nervous,
I’m sure,
so I want to unbutton the top three buttons
of his shirt
to set him free (just a little of course),
and I can’t
quite
catch
my
breath
so I sip water until I have to pee
but I know the toilet seat is stained
and I don’t want to dirty my dress
—I’m the bride this time.
My mother is staring at me,
a tender wince
in the rainy-sky blue of her eyes.
I’m not so sure this is the happiest day of my life.
I don’t even look that good.
This corset of a dress causes my excess skin
to spill over so it’s hard to tell where
the bursted breast begins and where the fat ends.
My mother is smiling at me
while she watches Lucy fix my braid,
a smile that makes me want to cry
because that’s exactly how I looked
at all the other brides before me,
a gentle passive acceptance of the truth
that this happiness with always be inaccessible,
cold as ocean-fish flesh,
that this tailored-white-dress-beauty dream will never exist for herself,
such sacred loveliness always out of reach
and I want to hold her and scream,
“mom, I’m not that happy!”
I’m miserable, fat and full of pee,
but
I’m the bride this time.
Lady of the Oleanders-Edit 1
Lady of the oleanders.
This is what Ben called her
when he came over
and she was reading under the oleander arch
on her apartment building’s lot,
white petals scattered around her.
Scarlett loved it when he called her that,
the best boyfriend ever,
made the back of her neck sing
and the sun feel so much sharper.
“Oh kiss me!” She’d cry to him,
and he would,
gliding a hand around the curve of her bum,
pressing her close as secrets.
She kissed him with
lips sometimes so immense and consuming
that he told her to “calm down” with a gentle laugh.
But she’d kiss harder if she could have her way,
ready to burst like a spider’s sac of eggs.
There was an autumn,
a very peculiar and famous autumn in the city,
when the oleander blossoms were so plentiful
they created a lacey blanket along the river that ran through town
as they fell by the hundreds.
Scarlett saw this blossom-rich river everyday,
gazed longingly as she walked to work,
how I wish to be that river, covered in oleanders!
She had always been particularly drawn to oleanders.
She rather liked the thrill of them,
how their small, simple bodies
were hidden with poison.
She liked things that were beautiful and deadly;
roses, tigers, and sharply-colored tropical frogs.
And every night she drew herself,
belly up,
hair cascading like willows branches behind her
as she floated on the river.
The white oleander blossoms like fat snowflakes.
Scarlett was a pretty good drawer,
her high school art teacher told her she should study in Paris
or Toronto,
but Scarlett didn’t draw very frequently,
only when she tired of reality,
of wet boots, bloated stomachs and cranky boyfriends,
then she drew,
and went to bed with the drawings in her head,
being spun into lovely dreams,
oleanders and girls delicate as river water.
In this autumn Scarlett had a fight with Ben
one night in the gloomy, cold-apple-crisp air
over sex, alcohol and peanuts,
the specifics not really important for the reader
I can assure you.
“You’re being a complete asshole!” she yelled,
the darkness cloaking the exaggerated contours of her mouth.
“And you’re boring to have sex with!”
She didn’t know how to handle her rage in the moment so
so she fled across the street
into the black arms of the forest.
She collasped in the brush
as Ben called out her name softly
because he was always so soft.
She didn’t want to move,
the frigid air so blessed and soothingly real,
nearly slicing the skin off her earlobe.
She cried a little,
angry with him,
but confused because she also wanted to come
to his soft voice.
She always did.
She got wet to the sound of his voice,
wanted to be wrapped in his arms
and touched all over,
burned by his kisses.
But she remembered him calling her “dramatic”,
and saying she wasn’t the center of the whole world.
Of course I’m not the center of the whole world!
Just my world she thought.
so she stayed very still,
not making a sound
until he found her.
“What the hell are you doing here Scarlett?” he said,
his voice almost-angry,
breaths heavy.
And his eyes-
his eyes were horrible and his mouth hung open.
She didn’t answer him,
but took his offered hand to get up off the cold ground.
They walked home,
side by side,
not saying a word,
just pale wisps of breath pressed
from the seams of their mouths.
She held her arms firm over her chest.
She was ashamed with herself for running away,
but she was angrier
that he had called her too dramatic.
She saw herself as passionate,
exceptionally bold.
To her
drama was for those who told lies about their lives
to make themselves feel more important and interesting.
I do not tell lies, Scarlett thought,
I am interesting.
But after the fight Scarlett became scared
that Ben did not love her
the way he used to when they were 21
and making out in blueberry forests,
hands all over her skin like a rash.
He had not called her that special nickname in a while
and it tormented her.
Was she just Scarlett to him now?
She wanted to be so beautiful for him
that he couldn’t take her eyes off her,
that he felt compelled to kiss the length of her neck,
to tell all his friends he was dating
a total fox.
Without the nickname she felt plain,
average,
boring.
He did not come to call on her quite so often,
nor did he ever bring up the fight,
he said he was busy with work,
but Scarlett thought she heard a new edge to his voice
over the phone,
like he was tired,
tired of her.
When she hung up,
her eyes became wet and she cried,
feeling as if something they once shared
had been ripped away from her.
One morning
Scarlett woke to the thrill of oleander petals
pressed against her bedroom window
from the fierce autumnal wind.
They tapped the glass like fingers
and with a smile
Scarlett let them in.
They scattered on her unmade bed.
She thought they were so lovely,
so pretty,
the way she always wanted to be pretty,
and they gave her a wonderful idea.
“I will become the Lady of the Oleanders,” she said,
a wild look to her eyes.
From the desk she picked up the drawing of herself
floating down the oleander river,
regarded it triumphantly.
Her whole body quivered with excitement.
If I am truly the lady of oleanders,
then he will love me again she thought.
“I shall be irrestsitable!” She gasped,
hugging her shoulders
as if she were a delicious plum
to be savored and popped in the mouth.
Eagerly she collected a basketful of oleanders
from the bushes outside,
white as icing sugar that
made her quake a little between the hips.
She thought them to be beautiful,
seductively simple blossoms.
Then she braided them in her hair,
determined to fulfill her role as the oleander lady,
put on her raspberry red lipstick because
she remembered her mother’s words
about how men can never resist a woman with red lips.
Then she slipped on a white linen dress and only that.
“I won’t even feel the cold,” she murmured to her reflection,
satisfied with how fragile she looked
in her white dress and petal-peppered hair.
Scarlett started her descent on
the outskirts of town in a forest
where the river was a little shallower.
She had calculated that by the time
she had floated to the market square
Ben would be eating his usual tuna sandwich
while on lunch break near the river,
just as he always did.
The thought of his face
once he saw her beautiful, compelling figure in the water
surrounded by a tide of blossoms
made her heart shimmy.
How gloriously frail she would look to him,
ready to be plucked from the water
like a ripe cherry from a tree.
Around her
the aspens were shocked into a wasp-yellow
and the last of the blood-red, rose hips were formed.
Autumn was in full heat.
She thought it was perfect day
to make her river journey.
Carefully, she got into the water,
cold as a million fish skins,
lay herself long
and looked up at the gray sky
with wide, hopeful eyes.
She clutched a browning bouquet of oleanders
to her chest.
“Now he will love me,” she whispered,
as if conversing with all of nature itself.
For how could someone not love a girl so passionately beautiful?
She thought.
She floated slowly down the river,
the carpet of oleanders becoming thicker
as she reached the center of town.
The petals seemed to almost swallow her whole.
The severity of the cold water awakened
Scarlett to remember the fight,
the hurt look on Ben’s face when he found her in the bushes,
disgust just beginning to shape his mouth.
How the thought made her want to cry!
She felt so guilty for having done it,
yet an apology seemed impossible to utter,
didn’t want to be so vulnerable in front of him.
Please love me.
Perhaps this was an apology enough Scarlett thought.
In the center of the city the river was nearly white with petals.
The chill began to smolder Scarlett’s skin,
legs and collarbone pale as cod meat,
and she was crying thin tears from the pain.
She wished she could just concentrate on how pretty she was,
how many oleanders there were around her,
this was exactly what she wanted,
wasn’t it?
Just wanted to hear him call her baby.
The people of the city did eventually notice a lady floating in the river,
dressed like a fairy,
lips plucked red from the wind,
oleanders brushed against her body hungrily,
their numbers so vast that it was hard to tell where she began
and where the flowers left off.
Several folk called out to her,
“are you alright miss?”
“go on, get outta there!”
Finally one woman recognized her,
she had been Scarlett’s English teacher in high school,
“why! It’s Scarlett! It’s Scarlett! Scarlett!
Good lord she’s shivering! Somebody get help!”
As expected,
Ben was on his lunch break when
he heard a woman yelling Scarlett’s name.
He hastened to the river railing
where the people were gathered,
and looked down 20 feet.
There was his Scarlett,
a ghostly swan,
looking as if she had been lying there all day,
sweet oleanders veiling her body.
He did not think,
he reacted,
“Scarlett! Scarlett!” He yelled,
running down the mossy, narrow stone steps,
jumped into the water,
grasped at her body as if she were a life board,
careful not to swallow the water,
the oleander’s venom spreading out like ink blotches.
She was cold and stiff as refrigerated bones,
eyes glassy and skin so unbelievably white
that she appeared to match the petals that surrounded her,
“my beautiful Scarlett,” she thought she heard Ben whisper.
When he had heaved her body unto land,
her head lolled onto his lap.
He searched her mouth for any petals,
but there were none,
though he did not see the one that lay at the back of her throat
like a sweet apple.
She was shivering out of her skin,
looked into Ben’s panicked, wet eyes.
She had never seen him so emotional before,
wished she could touch his cheek
to soothe him
but her arm was too cold.
Wished she could speak
but her lips were too numb,
sealed shut by the river.
Up above she could hear other people’s voices,
the cry of the crow,
a baby wailing,
wind brushing against the slick steps,
the rustling of a plastic bag.
But she was happy,
wasn’t she?
Though she was cold,
she must be happy.
The Lady of the Oleanders would always be the fairest,
beauty is happiness she thought
before her eyes closed.
For the next three weeks Scarlett had a terrible flu.
She sat on the couch all day,
covered in slimy tissues,
coughing and moaning,
sleep thick with dreams of
rivers, flowers and Ben.
Oh Ben!
He fed her carrot ginger soup,
spread warm woolen blankets across her lap,
kissed her nose, forehead,
that damp spot on her neck near the hairline.
She loved how doting he was,
her own spaniel.
“I’m sorry,” he kept saying.
“Why? It’s not your fault, I wanted to go in the river,” Scarlett said,
matter-of-fact.
“But when I found you-
you were smiling, Scarlett,
smiling as if you wanted to be found
by me,
as if you had planned this,” Ben said,
unsure of his own words.
Scarlett shook her head
though she knew what he said was true.
“I just wanted to see how it felt,
to lie among all those oleanders.
And it felt so wonderful, Ben!”
She exclaimed in her hoarse voice.
There was nothing he was to blame for,
she had been beautiful and because of that
Ben loved her again,
caressed her belly,
poured hot kisses into her mouth
and she gobbled them up,
chocolate cherry kisses.
He looked at her a little sadly,
touched her forehead
and let his fingers drip down the side of her face
like slow rain.
“Just don’t do that again, okay?” Ben said,
looking at his feet.
“Of course not,” Scarlett smiled.
People around town looked at Scarlett
as if she were a rose about to catch fire,
a certain respect and fear convuluted in their eyes.
Since the incident,
her boss asked her if she needed to take a leave of absence
to “address her current emotional state.”
Her friends called her more frequently,
“just wanted to know what was up” they’d say.
And Scarlett thought everyone was being silly,
there was nothing wrong with her,
she was happy.
Collected oleander blossoms and stuffed them into her bra,
wanted them to be close to the place
where Ben would gingerly kiss her every night
before turning the lights off.
Of course,
she always removed the flowers before he came to bed,
they were own secret,
liked the thought of danger
being spread over the soft flesh of her breasts,
that if he kissed and sucked long enough
he might inhale a little poison.
Scarlett forgot about their fight,
the disgust and sad whimper on his face
in the brisk chill of the night,
how the moon accented the hurt in his eyes,
forgot about their pain
and remembered only the beauty of the now,
the river and the oleanders;
those wildly poisonous ladies.
Then one morning Scarlett woke with a terrible tickle
in her throat,
and she coughed and coughed,
her face turning all red.
Out popped a single oleander petal
still as perfectly white
as when it had first fluttered in.
She looked at its little body on the sheets
and grew a little sad,
though she was not sure why.
She took the petal and put it in her jewelry box.
In the kitchen Ben was preparing breakfast,
oatmeal and milk,
one of her least favorite meals
and she wondered if he had forgotten
that she didn’t like it.
She looked at his face,
hopeful for a smile.
but he didn’t look at her
as he said “good morning.”
In fact he seem rather rushed,
and Scarlett felt a bloom fade
from her body.
“Did you sleep okay?”
she asked,
her voice fragile as porcelain,
ready to break
if he answered the wrong way.
“Yeah, kinda,” he answered absently,
stirring sugar into his coffee.
She swallowed,
her throat thick with a thousand tears
that she would only shed later
when he left.
A panic rose in her body,
this was how he spoke to her after the fight,
after she hid in the bushes,
it was starting all over again.
He wasn’t even looking at her,
did he even see her?
He had forgotten his Lady of the Oleanders.
I must remind him again she thought to herself.
I must be beautiful again.
Vareena of Swans
Vareena of Swans
Vareena was a swan woman
married to a dove man.
They had met in university,
and the first time he kissed her
she was found again,
buried under a thicket of web and thorn.
He used to touch her lip
the way he touched her nipples,
bruised her with softness,
while she stared with saucer eyes into his.
The first time she danced for him
they were in a sunsetting forest,
when the trees were bare
and she was very cold,
without any stockings under her skirt.
She shivered,
the dove man pulled her deep within his chest,
a butterfly embracing a flower,
kissed her shoulder,
her neck,
“you smell good,” he said,
lips wetted on her skin.
Vareena was so happy,
gently moved away from his embrace,
“I want to dance!” She cried.
For Vareena might have studied Business,
but she truly was a dancer,
not by profession
or classes,
she just was,
the way a cat is a hunter.
“Okay,” he said,
smiling and eyes steady on his swan woman.
She drew out her arm in length
with a curve where the elbow was,
and he took her hand,
bowed,
drew close to her.
Then she bounded away,
slipped from his touch,
came close again and arched her back,
a swan’s curve in her spine.
He placed a hand under her
though she didn’t need it,
A great elm’s skirted branches washed them in shadows,
obscured their figures.
She was a swan in a woman’s body
and when she danced
her dove man’s eyes blazed
and he loved her then.
Vareena could see the love in his eyes,
feel the burn of his touch.
Vareena and Tom did not dance together anymore.
She taught a beginner’s dance class to 8 year olds
in a studio downtown.
The floors were old and dented
and the mirror had paint marks and thumbprints,
but Vareena didn’t mind.
She just wanted to dance.
The children were not so good,
no sense of foot or limb,
but she had hope for them all,
said to her husband, “they’re my little swanlings.”
In class she clapped her hands,
bellowed, “dance like you’re about to die girls!”
Then ran across the room,
her arms alight with wings
that sliced the air like morning light.
The children never took their eyes off her
for they thought see she was beautiful.
One day when Tom and Vareena were seated for dinner,
the lights very low,
mushroom gravy and buttermilk-fleshed potatoes at their elbows,
it was snowing,
the kind of snow that fell like slow tears.
Vareena gazed out the window.
“Do you remember when you proposed to me?
It was snowing, just like this.”
Only it wasn’t just like this, she thought.
He looked very tired now,
an old man in smooth flesh.
“Yes I remember,” he said,
piercing a potato.
And Vareena wanted to ask,
“do you remember the time we danced
and we were the snow?”
But she was scared to hear that he didn’t remember.
The look on his face was distant and Vareena
felt very sad by this.
They ate in silence the rest of the meal.
Vareena’s was friend with one of her student’s moms,
Kitty Nowak,
her husband was distant too.
They sat outside the studio along the wall
on a thin bench,
the winter air heavy with cold.
Kitty took a long inhale from her cigarette,
exhaled a plume of smoke angled away from Vareena’s face.
“All the girls in this town look like the factories.
Smoking, producing, dirty.
You belong on a lake or something.”
Vareena laughed lowly,
tired from her late class.
“Maybe, but so what?”
Kitty smiled,
“you’re too good for this town!
You’re better than a ballerina,
you teach those girls to spin with their eyes wide open,
to be passionate,
to never be afraid.
I don’t want you to be afraid
because your husband is shit at loving you.”
Vareena squirmed,
“I’m not afraid. Afraid of what?”
Kitty sigh loudly,
“Not being enough.
Be on a stage,
be the prima ballerina,
you’re too good not to.
Capiche?”
Vareena nodded.
When she went home to bed that night she felt a little burst of wings
unfold in her heart,
she could barely sleep,
thought all night of bare feet and dancing on a lake,
water soft as silk sheets.
The following day Vareena went to the woods
for a walk.
She took a path that wrapped around the pond,
the snow had melted since yesterday
and made all the dead leaves slippery under her boots.
In the middle of the pond
she saw a swan black as ebony,
still as an icicle.
She thought this to be strange sighting for the season.
The swan was so beautiful,
so enormous
that Vareena wished very much for the swan to come closer.
The swan suddenly arose from the lake,
water running off his feathers,
its wingspan two black-blossomed roses,
flew over the pond
right two Vareena’s feet.
She did not move,
saw in his eyes her own
sadness reflected back at her.
“Such sad eyes,” she murmured to him,
not knowing if perhaps the foregeiness of a swan
eye made her interpret them as sad;
the human need to feel herself
entwined within the natural world.
Then the swan spoke and it was as if
swans had always spoke,
and Vareena had always understood swan.
“What is it you wish for?”
The swan asked.
Vareena thought,
“I wish for the freedom of my youth,
to dance with my husband again.”
She crouched down,
“I can’t give you what you can give yourself,” he said.
Her eyes watered,
“then make me a swan!
Let me be keeper of this pond.”
The swan bowed most gracefully,
“as you wish.”
Within a moment Vareena’s arms began to feel lighter,
her bones thinner,
shimmering black feathers laced themselves together
to create wings and plumage across her body,
her neck lengthened and feathered,
her nose grew hard and long,
a red beak in front of her.
Her feet flattened while her legs shrunk.
She was a swan.
Her clothes lay in a pile beside her.
She looked to the swan,
“Thank you.
What is your name?”
He admired her new form,
“my name is Vasily.”
“Well then, Vasily,
you have made me the happiest woman
on earth!
Now I can dance on the lake all day,
no husband to attend to!”
Vasily’s eyes looked even sadder,
“you are not a woman anymore,
you are a swan
and you must always remember that.”
Vareena spent her new days as a swan
doing just as she said.
She danced along the water’s surface,
gathered the wind in her wings,
the frost on her feathers.
Vasily watched her,
always with those same sad eyes,
not saying much at all.
Vareena was so astonishing a dancer
that soon other woodswalkers began to take notice.
They pointed with delight
and took photos.
Then word got out
of the beautiful swan dancer in the woods
and soon dozens of people were tramping
through the forest to see her.
Vareena loved the crowds,
they made her spin even more furiously
arch her neck even sharper
and finally lift up onto the water’s surface
as if on pointe.
“She’s simply dazzling!” Said one woman
who watched
hand in her husband’s hand.
This woman was Kitty,
and she came almost every day to watch the swan.
Now some time must be put aside to
speak of Tom,
for he had just lost his wife
and the police had found only her clothes
by the side of the pond.
But that was it.
And when the police captain looked at Tom with a shrug in his eyes,
pity in his voice and said,
“we can’t find anything,
but most of the time if we find clothes,
in the woods,
it’s usually some sort of-
Tom raised his hand,
“I know,
I don’t need to hear it.”
Tom did not like to think of Vareena tied up in someone’s basement,
in the trunk of an old Volvo,
or being touched by anyone else’s hands.
He loved her,
and he hadn’t said it enough.
He knew this.
He loved her and now she was gone.
Sleep became an old memory,
for he never found it
laying awake at night
staring at the door,
as if Vareena were to appear
with her arms wide open for a hug
for his arms around her,
“my very own fur coat,”
she once told him.
The night he proposed to her it was snowing.
They were outside taking a walk
with tall conifers above them,
furred in snow.
They had just finished their exams
and were filled with a temporary ecstasy
of feeling free.
He looked at her while she was laughing,
some joke about a professor,
and asked, “will you marry me?”
She had her knitted scarf tied very firmly
around her neck,
the dip of her chin
and her cheeks were dark crimson under the lamplight.
He thought she looked very beautiful like this.
Vareena nodded,
perhaps a little hesitant.
“Yes, yes I will.”
Then she giggled, “but will you marry me?”
He laughed, “but of course.”
How happy he had been that night.
Stupidly happy he thought now,
stupid for thinking that happiness would always last.
He could not remember the last time she laughed
because of the something he said or did.
She laughed with her sister on the phone,
books she read,
but he felt very far away from that laughter.
But Tom was tired.
Work at the office was long
and answering emails
had become the majority of his work days.
His colleagues were tired too,
drank lots of sugar-spiced coffee,
talked about their kid’s flu,
their next vacation in Cancun.
It was all so predictable to Tom.
The best part of his day was when he went to bed,
peeked over at Vareena’s sleeping face
to watch the onset of dreams flutter her eyelids
for he liked to see her so peaceful
when sometimes she’d look at him across the dinner table
with the saddest eyes.
Those eyes made him feel helpless.
When spring finally came,
the land slowly started to change from
slush and mud to mud and daffodils,
snowbells and periwinkle crocuses.
A fever thawed the buckwheat fields,
the straw grass and all the birch and linden trees
which began to bud.
By now Vareena was a little tired of the forest,
of the pond
and while she still danced,
there was less energy in her.
One day while they were silent and still on the water,
reflections of pine and alder above them
Vareena asked Vasily, “How is it you watch me
every day,
saying nothing?”
If swans could shrug, Vasily’s eyes did the motion for him,
“you are a very good dancer,
but I think you know that.
What else would you like me to say?”
Vareena stopped,
for she did not know.
All she knew was the wanted
to feel as beautiful as the tender burst
of spring that erupted around her,
as hot as wet, summer days when the bees buzzed heavy.
She wanted to be noticed.
She had thought being a swan would give that to her,
and it had,
for a time,
but perhaps she wanted to be noticed in her human skin as well.
There finally came day when Vareena’s husband came to the woods.
He had heard of the swan dancer by the old mill pond,
and wanted to see it for himself.
He wasn’t sure what took him so long
to shake him from the winter of his mind
to finally see the swan,
but at least he was here now.
When he first saw Vareena,
her black feathers waxy and soft as tulip petals,
he was sure she was lady floating there on the lake,
a lady in a black dress.
He blinked his eyes,
but there was just a swan.
He wondered why she was not dancing.
Vareena was very deep in her thoughts.
She was thinking of Tom,
of their cozy apartment by the river,
the willow she used to sit under on and read books.
She thought of maple syrup soaked French toast
on Sundays,
the salmon flesh of spring strawberries,
her favorite black cashmere sweater with
the wings of gold-beadwork on the arms.
Human things.
She thought of her and Tom’s last kiss.
A real kiss,
the kind that burns cigarettes.
They had made love on a frozen night,
when she got home,
sweaty from a dance class.
She took a shower
and Tom quietly came in,
wrapped his big arms around her drizzled body
and kissed her shoulders
while he moved his hands down her pelvis,
saying nothing,
only the sound of shower rain
and wet kisses.
Then she turned around,
her eyes steady on his beating-heart ones.
She spit out the water from her mouth,
clung to his lips
as if to a ripe raspberry still on the bush.
She wanted that kiss,
those kisses,
again.
And that’s when she saw him,
standing with a hand to his forehead,
capping the sun.
Her immediate reaction was to shout to him,
Tom I’m here! Tom!
But then she remembered her swan form,
her feathers, beak and hollow bones.
He did not know her now.
She was a stranger,
an animal.
“But perhaps, I could dance for him,”
she murmured, excited,
agitated.
She blossomed her wings,
bowed her neck,
broke the still water.
She danced as if her heart were breaking,
because it was,
to the vision of him on riverbank,
his dove-man heart folded very softly
within him,
and she wanted to pull it out,
dance all over it,
make it bleed,
beat and skip.
She felt as passionate
as that 20 something girl in the woods,
dancing with her boyfriend for the first time
beneath the elm.
He watched very intently,
a deep love stirring from his freshly awakened heart.
“That is not a swan,” he said,
knew it instantly to be his wife.
Vareena danced that wildly,
luscious as clove spice
with toes that seemed to skim and kiss the air.
That was his Vareena.
He moved closer.
Then he kicked off his sandals,
waded into the river’s edge,
further and further
until his shirt ballooned like a jellyfish from his body.
“Vareena!” He called, frantic now,
splashing,
moving limbs rapidly.
The swan kept dancing,
he could feel the water droplets
propelled from her wings on his face.
As she danced
Vareena realized with the most intense,
burning sadness that she did not want to be a swan anymore.
She wanted to be a woman.
She wanted to be a dance instructor.
She wanted to be a wife.
She wanted to be a performer.
So she kept dancing,
spun and spun
until all the trees, sky and earth
became one.
When she stopped she fell into the water,
exhausted,
ready to collapse into the hard thud of her own heart-fall.
Then smooth skin gripped her body,
pulled her head to the surface.
“Vareena!” A voice said.
And she understood.
Tom was cradling her limp neck
while he cried out her name.
She wanted to cry with him,
I’m a swan now! I’ve cursed the both of us!
Then he kiss her neck
with hard lips.
Vareena felt her body grow heavy,
feathers smooth over into skin,
limbs lengthen,
long, raven hair grow from her head.
She was a woman again
looking into her lover’s eyes.
How deliciously ripe she felt!
Ready to burst into flower.
She held a sharp awareness
for her legs,
excited to stand on solid ground once again
so her thighs could feel the push of earth against muscle.
“I knew it was you!
I knew it was you!” Tom gasped,
still holding her naked body,
though he didn’t need to
because Vareena could hold herself up just fine.
From the corner of the pond
a black swan looked upon the scene
with sad eyes.
If only his love had come back to him,
then perhaps he would be human again,
perhaps he would dance again.
Night Walks
When she walks home after work,
the dark settles like sleep around the city,
snuggles close to gasping cracks of lights
that eyes fleet to, moth-like.
She whistles Lana Del Rey,
a tortured warble pressed through shivery lips,
sharp as a pinch to the ear.
There’s a knife in her throat
and she can’t sing it out.
In Uppsala
something changes around April.
The ground thaws to pea-green grass,
the first sharp color of crocuses burst through,
their little periwinkle blossoms a trumpet for spring’s arrival.
The days are longer,
people shed off their woolen underwear,
their sleek, leather booties in favor
of white sneakers and cropped pants.
A warmer wind blows through birches,
and quite suddenly there are lilacs everywhere.
Deep plum-purple lilacs,
snow-white lilacs,
pink lilacs,
lilac lilacs.
Such an abundant flower;
lots of clustered blossoms,
lots of soft, dreamy fragrance,
lots of lots of lots.
When they grow along woodlands,
unused lots,
they are full,
savage as untended briars.
Those were my favorite lilacs.
I can’t speak the language,
the way their r’s rrrroll
into a lush purr.
I don’t understand the people,
the way they linger so long onto silences
at the dinner table.
Sweden doesn’t make sense to me
yet.
But those lovely lilacs growing in parking lot gardens,
those fresh fields of scilla beneath the beech,
those make sense to me,
perhaps
the rest will come.
Winter Girl
Fair as open snow,
hair on fire like sun-hit copper,
smile wide and toothsome,
—something that always scared her teachers,
she grew up in the cold,
where lips turn cranberry in the frost,
snow lets out a steamy breathe
and fans out her powdery dress,
about to dance the dance of wind song
in the arms of the gray sky.
She was not like the other girls,
viciously beautiful,
a white tigress
who could walk barefoot through the snow
with a smile on her face,
ice-burn mellow as satin on her feet.
At night,
she whisper-walked down to the graveyard,
ghost girl of snowstorms yet to come.
Here she tip-toed on graves,
hummed something in the deepness of her throat
that sounded of winter’s husky moan,
conjured the skies to sob thick,
globby tears,
just like hers,
this winter girl,
whose mama said her heart was made of ice,
whose wet eyes were icicles
sharp as wolf’s fang.
Wild Bunny
The light was hazy
along the oak-lined sidewalks
as if dust had settled in the sunlight
but plants were green as fresh lettuce
so that gardens and lawns
looked impossibly ripe when I saw
a rabbit with orca markings
nibbling on some grass,
its short ears rounded like tulip leaves
and I wondered what a little, house bunny was doing loose
in someone’s yard and maybe I should call someone
because they missed their little Flopsy or Carrot,
but I stopped
because I didn’t want to see the rabbit caged,
hopping around newspaper shreddings and sucking from a plastic bottle,
no, I wanted the rabbit to wander on grass,
nibble thin stalks,
its black fur glossy and its white fur sleek,
scent of rose blossoms like silk scarves flying through the air,
caressing the nostrils and
I wanted the rabbit to be wild again
though nothing is wild in suburban yards
except perhaps for black and white bunnies
on the loose.
The Last Kiss
She thought of her and Tom’s last kiss.
A real kiss,
the kind that burns cigarettes.
They had made love on a frozen night,
when she got home,
sweaty from a dance class.
She took a shower
and Tom quietly came in,
wrapped his big arms around her drizzled body
and kissed her shoulders
while he moved his hands down her pelvis,
saying nothing,
only the sound of shower rain
and wet kisses.
Then she turned around,
her eyes steady on his beating-heart ones.
She spit out the water from her mouth,
clung to his lips
as if to a ripe raspberry still on the bush.
She wanted that kiss,
those kisses,
again.