Lynda Hull
The years have verdigrised the fallen leaves
on the pilgrim's monument you loved--horse's
arched necks straining towards autumn, summer's
last sultry declension. The night of the call
was the night of the planets, of gauzy cirrus
whipped, fiery seraphim cruising an atmosphere
of whispered conversations, soft alto laughter
wreathed in smoky helixes, smoke that fogged
Ann's face as she'd lean forward, a cup
held, girlish, in both hands. The night
I learned of her death, we walked
and found again that single child's ballet
slipper at shoreline. Boundaries. Water
and singing stones, day world to night world,
seasons turning one to the other, bay to open ocean.
That was the night the lacquered monkeys wove
their paws through a woman's plaited hair--
the psychic's display, and her crystal globe
of the world marked with its boundaries, winds
and demons turning silently in the window.
On that globe this night must show, the night
of the girl on the rocks tossing garlands
of freesia and dahlias, earrings into the water,
the waves' incantation, over and over, runnel
to ascent and crest, the torn lace of collapse.
The singing stones, the night the bandaged ward
shut down, morphine swaddles her riddled body.
The night somewhere, the first time, a Child kickturns
in its amniotic sea, and a girl walks trailing
from her shoulders a glitter wrap so
the shadow pimps go hey princess,
why you so sad tonight.. Freesias and dahlias
on the water, violet, rippling like a beast
in the breeze, dahlias straggling
the streets of that wooden town by the sea
where I knew her. To say, when I knew her,
is to say I knew something of what she dreamt
when she was young, when she was young
the circle skirt swept below her knees, is
to know something of her style, the gestures--
a flutter of hands. The distance intervenes.
How much is let go, what changes . . . .
The night I had the call someone had a vision
of a ballroom floating music over water.
Glenn Miller? Artie Shaw? And we walked
until the lights of the twilit boat appeared
and the music was carried over the water,
violet ripples, the turning sphere and click
slide of women slow-dancing in strapless
evening gowns, velvet masks, a world distant
from the slashed graffittied splendor of our
park. Distant as you are now, woman small
as a dancer, already half cold springtime
air, my last visit, the fierce consuming
cancer. The psychic's spinning globe
& the music of those dancing feet, your face
in April, lit with pain, & yes, apprehension
radiant above your hands' flying seraphim
attending to the sum & the glory & the flame.
Notes you'd send me pondered, stricken, composed
again on blue paper in your room with its
canopied bed, the desk with its garland
of lilies, casements opening to a garden.
To say, I knew you. The room empty
tonight, dust filtering its sloughed
transparent wings over the spines of books,
the neat half moons of clipped fingernails
in a glazed dish by your bed. The ballroom
floats its melodies until it's spectral,
a radiant drifting to the insect's
furious orchestra, the waves, then gone.
From whence do we come, and whither
do we go--that ancient mystery.
A crystal globe spins its provinces, the city
where your room draws its veils. Beyond
the casements, the garden's iron gate
clicks open, and who is it now that enters?
Tables of Content
Seventeen (Fall 2003)
Sixteen (Spring 2003)
Fifteen (Fall 2002) Fourteen (Spring 2002)
Thirteen
(Fall 2001) Twelve (Spring 2001)
Eleven (Fall 2000)
Ten (Spring 2000)
Nine (Fall 1999) Eight (Spring 1999)
Seven, (Fall 1998) Six, (Spring 1998)
Five (Fall 1997) Four (Winter/Spring 1997)