In the Deluxe Bakeshop, 1969 (narrated by Naomi Jacobson)
For Jayne Mansfield
Your head shouldered the impact
When the Electra slipped under topless,
Hood and hood ornament peeled back
On the curving road from Biloxi to everything else.
The headless blonde wig on the dash, in a silver
Stirrup of moonlight against night’s flank,
Dangling like the hook of the tow.
On the wall of The Deluxe Bakeshop,
Where celebrity customers were trophied and framed,
A black-and-white photograph snapped you
In strapless, knife-folds of frosting,
A pert Chihuahua under each arm,
Doubling your cup size.
Posed like the Spirit of Ecstasy--
The bonnet brooch on a Rolls Royce--
Bared shoulders and plunging headlong
Over a candled cake.
Was it to blow out the candles?
To check on the sleeping children?
If only you had done that then
Or like Winged Victory
Did you cup your hand to your mouth,
And shout your triumph--
Bring for a moment the divine,
Offer your face first
To the photographer,
Say, I am a beautiful woman,
Take my face in your hands,
Take my face.
When the Electra slipped under topless,
Hood and hood ornament peeled back
On the curving road from Biloxi to everything else.
The headless blonde wig on the dash, in a silver
Stirrup of moonlight against night’s flank,
Dangling like the hook of the tow.
On the wall of The Deluxe Bakeshop,
Where celebrity customers were trophied and framed,
A black-and-white photograph snapped you
In strapless, knife-folds of frosting,
A pert Chihuahua under each arm,
Doubling your cup size.
Posed like the Spirit of Ecstasy--
The bonnet brooch on a Rolls Royce--
Bared shoulders and plunging headlong
Over a candled cake.
Was it to blow out the candles?
To check on the sleeping children?
If only you had done that then
Or like Winged Victory
Did you cup your hand to your mouth,
And shout your triumph--
Bring for a moment the divine,
Offer your face first
To the photographer,
Say, I am a beautiful woman,
Take my face in your hands,
Take my face.
The Alchemy of War (narrated by John Lescault)
At the zoo on the West Bank
“The dead may outrace the living.”
The male giraffe terrified
By gunfire, a sound that reported to instinct,
Crumpled before his pregnant mate.
She birthed a still life.
The zoo veterinarian, now in-house taxidermist,
Gutted the father and the son
From pelvis to breast bone
Releasing each heart from its cage,
Raised the dead for bloodletting
And freighted each with hay.
Army medic, he’s amputated baboon fingers,
Stitched a six-inch wound in the ostrich’s neck.
Even the gypsum-filled ostrich dons an old cast--
Stigmata of fear-flight against its cage.
Today the pale brow of the dead baby giraffe is cocked
For an eternal view of his dead father.
Zoo to museum. Disquieted nativity
Ruminating in a forged crèche.
“The dead may outrace the living.”
The male giraffe terrified
By gunfire, a sound that reported to instinct,
Crumpled before his pregnant mate.
She birthed a still life.
The zoo veterinarian, now in-house taxidermist,
Gutted the father and the son
From pelvis to breast bone
Releasing each heart from its cage,
Raised the dead for bloodletting
And freighted each with hay.
Army medic, he’s amputated baboon fingers,
Stitched a six-inch wound in the ostrich’s neck.
Even the gypsum-filled ostrich dons an old cast--
Stigmata of fear-flight against its cage.
Today the pale brow of the dead baby giraffe is cocked
For an eternal view of his dead father.
Zoo to museum. Disquieted nativity
Ruminating in a forged crèche.
Set the Needle
A hawk feather stabbed like a dart the dirt road
This morning, as though to play that mile of desert.
And in the stream we crossed to Seven Falls
Pointing ourselves in the pitch of water’s warbly wave,
The melody changed against our bodies in the rushing current,
Reedy woodwinds added by the bending brush.
Each of us one needle cutting a master on earth.
Even the man on the moon set a flag in the groove
In the Sea of Tranquility to hear the tune of that lunar mare,
Like the first recording of sound scratched in soot--
The hill-and-dale pattern of Au Clare de la Lune,
Loan me your pen to write something down.
And the way your arm swings over my waist at night
At the spot where the music begins with that breathy start.
This morning, as though to play that mile of desert.
And in the stream we crossed to Seven Falls
Pointing ourselves in the pitch of water’s warbly wave,
The melody changed against our bodies in the rushing current,
Reedy woodwinds added by the bending brush.
Each of us one needle cutting a master on earth.
Even the man on the moon set a flag in the groove
In the Sea of Tranquility to hear the tune of that lunar mare,
Like the first recording of sound scratched in soot--
The hill-and-dale pattern of Au Clare de la Lune,
Loan me your pen to write something down.
And the way your arm swings over my waist at night
At the spot where the music begins with that breathy start.