Spring 2008

Kerri Maestric
(1968-2001)

The deterioration of your hands
came brilliantly at the start—
Restless fidget of fingers
that rolled split edges of hair,
traced rows from west to east
when reading the hungry lines

of Sunday’s New York Times,
twisted your ring when you’d speak—
Stilled into a blazing focus.
But the muscles began to starve
and the lovely cup of your palm where
you used to puddle your head

began to flatten and unthread.
Your feet began to forget their part,
tangling on familiar sets of stairs
you had always climbed unnoticed.
We watched your words unwind,
blunted and dulled under the thieving

hands of every passing week,
dripping from your tongue in halves
rough metered and unfinished.
We flew to the British Virgin Islands
hoping your unraveling body parts
would milk into honeyed repair

under the direction of more tropical air.
We studied the medicine of Japan,
performed acupuncture on your feet,
scoured medical journals until our eyes
needled and dried into refinish
with fitful sleep, always difficult to part

the seams of night and day in terms of start
and again. There is a dip in the bed,
where we propped pillows under your knees,
that I now am privileged to call mine.
The Turkish perfume you used to wear
sits to the right of the sink, unfinished.

Yesterday I answered the phone and said
you were not there and carried your panties
stuffed into my pocket, hopefully unnoticed.



Here Comes the Sun

High Priestess of soul
shocks waves
from ankles to head—
stops and wrings sharp
into cool—
becomes breath,
that is hands, promising,
“You were here.
You melted, I puddled
you in my palms, waited
you firm, and you are here.”

Nina sings and wakes
the daisies potted
on the back porch
to see the sun on days
when it is not there.

Petaled faces gun
where the target hung
and will hang again.

Marking where the sun
shone, knowing
it will burn back in.


#1
No one, not even
the drains, the garbage, the streets,
owns such open hands.

#2
Little to remain
of anyone- conversation,
voices at table.

#3
Memory fulfills
itself, becomes flesh, carries
wanderers back home.

#4
Our tits are blackened
like fresh Ethiopian
salt and peel sardines.

#5
Lack we always feel
steps through the door—finally—
strokes our hair, dreaming.

#6
Nothing left of it
but breath of creeks and lakes—wild—
sad—clearly human.

#7
Drink dry gin to twin
a flat of ripened strawberries,
melons, sugared peach.

#8
Cain murdered Abel.
A story so sad that God
took notice of it.

#9
I have said your name
as prayer, as a blessing,
as a teething want.

#10
One moment bulges
like the belly of a lens—
the rest diminished.

#11
Salted waves moaning
under as sleep waits to come.
Rhythm of day past.

#12
Absurd to think things
were held still, are held in place,
by a web of words.

#13
Soapboxes and shoeboxes,
almanacs and Sears catalogue,
new telephone books.

#14
Taken by the took
of midday, brown arms opened,
mind hushed, a bit frayed.

#15
“Something in good taste.
Maybe a suit? Good for church?
Clean, crisp, permanent.”


“Origami”

By her count, they had spoken twice before she could remember his name. The first time, they crossed outside a bookstore, a patient Wednesday night. She was with Charlie, a loose acquaintance of his, and laughed as the boy threw his hands above his head to demonstrate the increased range of motion gained as a fruit of his recent shoulder surgery. From what she remembers, they bumped into each other again a few weeks later. She was leaving a hazy restaurant celebration of someone’s birthday. He sat a few tables behind and everything about him was large and firm and inviting as he spoke to her quietly by name and complimented the physics of her swinging coat.
By his count, they had spoken twice more. Once as a simple thank you as he held open the door, then again in the time between the bookstore and the restaurant. He found her on an unseasonable Friday morning pedaling complimentary literary magazines. If he had liked her before, he loved her then, wrapped in the casualty of a freely buttoned shirt and Boston baseball cap, smiling at the disinterest of the people passing her by. It was clear that she did not recognize him as she pressed the magazine into his hand, but she spoke to him as if she did. Her guiltless freedom to remember and forget him traced his thoughts until he ran into her again.
This time she was standing alone at a going away party. He told her the elephants patterned across her orange dress reminded him of imperialism. She told him he was imperially tall. They were together in the kitchen and began to arrange the German word magnets scattered across the refrigerator into lines with syntax, meaning, and style. As they positioned the magnets, he reported the times he had seen her coming and going around town. He told her she never remembered to take off her sunglasses inside. She said that she had questioned a mutual friend about him, but for the life of her could not remember his name. Set aside from the music and conversation boiling around them, they bristled away from each other.


Every Happy Family

Happy families are all alike;
every unhappy family is unhappy
in its own way.

Carters Infants cotton tee,
Mother-Goosed blanket wet with sleep.

Honey that my mother’s voice is,
valley where my father’s voice lives.

Netted playpen carousels around,
sister’s ball, smacking up, bounces down.

Dust feathers through shaded windows,
yeast warms flour kneaded into dough.

Milk that my mother’s love is,
salt my father’s kiss gives.

Dog-eared pages press
stories not opened yet.



1208 Davis Lane

Scoured pans stack
into cupboards
bloated with unmatched
mugs and decanters
who chip into plates
stacked faithful
from dinners
already observed.

Look at the pictures
and the cutlery.
The conversations
between window
and wall.

Warming milk into cereal
I listen to your feet
moving upstairs,
the echo of your feet
moving upstairs,
from yesterday
and a string of days before.

It was villainous
to ugly up and forget
a space I loved
but did not miss.



Wall

You went away,
to doughy hills of continents.
You were never here to stay.

Folding heat of day
into spaces unspent,
you went away

and trails of unpaid
bills serve as evidence
you were never here to stay.

There is little left to say-
other than, without warrant-
you went away,

leaving a sooty note to explain,
without intent
you were never here to stay.



The Bronx

Chalked
as a game
of hopscotch—
Vast space
summed
in limbs
of unfolding
boxes—
Uncertain
the heat
of the end.

Now,
at the close
of our play,
I have skipped
to a tardy
understanding
of waiting
for you
jumping,
diamondly,
behind.

Gold
glinting
in asphalt
is treasure
you alone
glimpse,
skipping
lightly
to pavement
swelling
ahead.