Gabriella Fee
Drought
No news from you this February day.
The exhaust pipe leaves a continental stain
On the floor of the garage. Sand lodged
Between the tile and the Welcome mat
Reminds me of the sweeping to be done,
The wreath to be removed and flung
From the hill to the forest below where,
Sheepishly, I’ll watch it turn to loam.
In two months spring will come. April’s
Chill will be a friendly ghost to swat at,
A fly, but not quite so July,
A gnat, a sort of compromise.
No news from you at all, but that’s okay.
This far North, we’re hardy folk.
We know just what to say during a blizzard
Or a drought. Who needs water
Anyway? Once the frost breaks, to feed
The bulbs you left in the front garden,
I’ll need it. Those tulip bulbs, yellow
Tumors, they malign. For them, perhaps,
Some water, but I’m fine. I mark my days
By simple wax and wane. The stain’s,
I mean, not the moon’s. The stain
In the garage grows according
To my mileage rate, my oil check,
My ability to rise from bed and check
The phone for messages in your cracked
Voice, the box for letters in your looped
Hand, the sky for jet-trails, the roads
For sand, the bulbs for life, the trees for
Life, my heart for life, for life, for life.
By Kimberly MacCormack
Breakfast in Bed
Fingers mangle the soft cotton. Pulp
Stains in sunsets. Hip to hip: our
Bones are fragile, our skin a canvas.
Tangerine peels knick my collarbone.
I cough greetings. Your eyes trace news-
Print. Coffee curls to steam, brims over
Porcelain. The phone rings: we’ve over-
Stayed our welcome.
Noon scatters our clothes from bed
To floor to my suitcase’s hinged,
Hungry mouth. We fold cotton
Corners as if the maid’s busy.
Lobby doors buzz and click,
Keys clack against wood, hang
From hooks, wheels roll on marble:
The language of goodbye.
By Gabriella Fee
Nobska
This is the beach. Its arms are tethered
Eels arched in a stillborn dive. Its brow
Is ridged as porphyry, purple in the whining
Light. This is the beach. In whip-grass, women
Clean sand from their suits as if infinity
Isn’t beneath and all around them.
This is the beach on which I leave you.
The tide has taken a long ride. Brine-built,
Clapboard-trapped, the house is heavy
With our little weight, with the ogres cast against
The wall when the sun dips. I want to see
My footprints rise to nothing. Come walk.
The orange buoys muscle down. The ferry
Moans. My hand is tight against your eagerness.
Swim, then, before the glow worms come out,
And the scientists with their nets, and the children
With their sloppy bodies. Swim.
I never liked you wet, well-oiled, smelling
Of fish, gritty as a loofah. I never liked
Your pupils’ pulse, your tongue ridiculous
As a bandage. But when you pumped toward me
With webbed toes, each eye a little storm,
I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind the rake of your nail
against my thigh, or your turning, urgent body,
how it brought me over and over to the sand.
So many times I must have needed saving.
If I had brought the camera, turgid in its zippered
Suit, we might have had something: the suns
Of my summer cheeks shoved in the lens, hair
Blown up nostrils, fur around my knees where you sit
And shift to accommodate the rogue, ripe as an oyster,
that pushes at your stomach. We might have had
Your snout, hardly in the frame, aimed at the sea
Where the eels strain at their chains, aimed past
The Vineyard, even, and Nantucket’s blur, where
The tumbling open of your belly is tides from now
And the heat of your breath still against my leg.
Child
Sieves, child, hold
No sea, dig no hole,
Play no lee.
Bring them to me.
Clams, child, knots
Of seed, live like you,
Their tongues are beads.
Bring them to me.
Hands, child, hold
The sea, dig a hole,
Tongue a bead.
Bring them to me.
