REMEMBERING
- for Stacie M. Kiner
You were always certain
there would come
a time of certain absolutes,
a time when you'd believe
in the honesty of trees
whose rings confess their age
only when sliced.
I often saw the shadow
of an afterburn
cross your face,
as though a MiG-47 passed
between you and the sun,
a wing throwing its brief outline
across the bridge of your nose.
I've known that you were hungry
ever since the cut glass refraction
of your language split the morning
into Summer's own 7 pages of script.
And now. Now, outside your rooms,
the wind howls with the wars of your early poems,
pushing over every shallow-rooted tree.
In the morning, we shall walk through the green light,
and together count the rings under each other's eyes.
my darling, under and around my head, floating
There are size 10 slippers here,
waiting for the dead skin
pledged by your feet.
Here, soap and water arms
wait to circle your peripheries;
make computer images of your slices,
each one, one cell wide.
There is a mouth containing liquid
guaranteed to cleanse any wound,
and with its kisses' loud smacking,
chase away the goblins of streetcars,
and deserted, rain-slick streets.
If you find solace in the simplicity of
machine oil and paper carpets,
you may arrive any time you like,
day or night, or day.
Here, where every dream exists
around the corner of a thigh or
inside a bubble of spit, you are
the always welcome guest and
sweet missive from a friend.
Chinatown
The man skitters down the sidewalk
pumping his legs, straight, like oil rig levers
digging, but faster.
"No. No go down. Don't touch."
There is no music in his language,
and he says these words loud, knowing
I will understand nothing but the hole rending power
of his earthbound steps, and gunshots of speech.
"No. No. You no touch,"
waving his hands in semaphore.
I look at him, and down the steps;
see careful displays of shoes, naked,
descending. He suspects me a thief
of order and merchandise.
He has watched my hands carefully
for an hour as I browsed his shop, touching,
lifting, perusing, laughing
at the strangeness of the decisions
he's made which tell me
that there are more among us
than I ever thought possible
who buy rabbit fur possums
in tiny porcelain bathtubs;
that judging from the dust,
the gross of polka dot shower caps
was an old miscalculation,
no matter how good the wholesale price.
"Chinatown." The Daily News. http://super.zippo.com. December, 1997.
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Jan McLaughlin’s life has a life of its own. She enjoys anything having to do with sound: conversation, film, dance, theater, music, chaos, and silence. Despite her life-long romance with language, McLaughlin says, “Words mean nothing. Action is everything."
Princess-at-Large
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