Lorelei Lee

Let us go

Let us go to a place where we are never turning

away from the sun, a place where its rays would

follow us at every angle, angles of mountainside

and volcanic cliffs forged from a sea distracted

by the nymphs that danced on its shores.

Let us go to a place where we feel the tilt of the Earth

inside of us, shaking passports and forgotten worries

from our pockets.

Let us go to a place all in ruins,

where columns finger the tresses

of the sky, tangling the firmament,

waking the Gods who would look upon us

with disdain if it weren’t for the chariot

we’d run like the blazes to the nearest museum

where my love for you is writ in a golden book

that is encased in glass, safe from flash photography.

Tasseography

Black assam

was perfume for

the throat, eating

flowers down to

their crocus;

Green:

unfurled flags

or seaweed

for a mariner sipping

tobacco washed up

on anchored saucers.

Serpentine, headless,

stingrays dove

at the pearls

of sugar

buried

in the heeltap,

no daylight

at the rim,

just a raft of lemon,

its fleshy planks

striated, curdling pink,

sloshing golden water.

Lilliputians

of a master guild

were doused. On

cinnamon-stick

scaffolding

their eyelash brushes

rendered the globe

(around it:

fat sultans, the Queen

reclining,

an Assyrian princess

with a parasol and

tambourine,

an Egyptian king

costumed in feathers -

of orange pekoe -

armed with arrow and bow,

an alligator at his feet).

Their art was soundless.

They wore

flippers as they worked,

carried paddles –

ready to voyage to

the other side

of the porcelain canvas,

through the breakfasty sea,

where they traced

the zodiac

through that

stained lagoon,

dripping star scents

and crumbs of the sun

into the paint.

Oxygen

for the boil

was cold water, a

serous alchemy.

Gulped down to

leafy starfish,

it was too late

not to empty

what they were deep

into making good fortunes of.

____________________________

A varied collection of poems chosen by Garrison Keillor for his radio show, Prairie Home Companion. Great for the bedside.

Pedestrian

On our way to the grocer’s

We happened upon

A snapping turtle. He lay

In the middle of the road

Immobilized by the sun,

Not able to turn

Back to the curb,

Back to his molten pond.

His barbed mouth

Parted as we neared.

A black tongue

Did not pant or bark.

Only a hiss

Issued from the shell of him:

An Egyptian curse

Released from a pried tomb

Without clasps

Or locks to pick, nor booby traps.

His forehead

Never mirrored

The heat and his stomach

Never sighed.

He lay ready to exert

A century of effort into one step,

His elephantine legs

Buried to the knees in gravel,

His brontosauric tail

Susurrating behind.