I was unnerved—the way he walked at ease
against the toss, Pacific restlessness
at heel as if he were a natural
at ocean life, though born a desert rat
-M.
Desert Born (blank verse)
Category: Poetry
A Thing I Will Miss When I Die (poem)
Knowing the ghetto birds fly
also over the ones I love
that we are connected by this
that we are hardened equally
used to the sound
come to depend on it
to know we’re home.
-M.
A Soft Place to Carry (poem)
He mended his side, his Christ wound
sharply, his face distorted by pain—
the needle a thick catharsis,
the catgut a chanteuse in loose stitches.
He dug out his liver first
to make a nest for his love
who made herself small
enough to crawl in.
Who made herself animal
enough to luxuriate in
the wet perfumes of carnage.
-M.
In Florence (poem)
An apartment with frescoes on the walls
that lean toward the light, lean toward naughty Roman,
sigh darkly over their birth in the prim pre-Renaissance instead.
They whisper to each other of the hardships of being
mere copies of copies, restored and restored again,
each time by cruder hands.
The apartment, saddled with inaccurate
purple velvet furniture and skinny beds
packed in as if for orphans
is attached to some chi chi hotel with flags out front
that clank against their poles and wave
to the bronzed pickpocket boys in the street
whose clever-eyed discernment is spent mostly on
which girls’ asses are ripe for a pinch.
The pope who built the palace,
now parsed out for foreigners and fornicators,
glides from room to room, to hotel lobby,
to check-in check-out counter, and, disillusioned,
wonders if this torment is the tail end of his
thousand year purgation for loving the woman
who burnt his bread often and shrieked at lesser maids.
-M.
Many Hours Passed Softly (poem)
We sat at the table with less light
you picked carefully.
Nervous, I walked around it the wrong way
twice.
I had walked around the car the wrong way too
before stepping up onto the curb.
I hope you didn’t see that.
I had trouble finding the door.
Before,
I padded through my cool bedroom
getting dressed, getting ready,
and stuck the mascara wand directly
in my eye.
I forgot here and there
which garment came after which—and
I tell you it’s a miracle I met you
with my bra on under my clothes.
Inside you found me,
dressed and made up with the same
kind of hot trouble that adorns your coffee.
I did one eyebrow darker than the other
accidentally
but only worried about you noticing
in the fraction of time it took
for us to embrace
and stake our flag
through the beating heart of fear.
No self-consciousness here. No need.
Not one.
We held hands and spoke of esoteric things.
I will tell you the light was all yours
that attracted a witness prowling for converts
and a man with a chaos tattoo.
The prowler wanted to suffocate the light.
The tattooed man poked it curiously.
And I
sat looking with one dark eyebrow raised
loving you for it—
for your fire
for your shadows too.
-M.
M. N. Ashley 