August Shower

I watch you, a view
whose angles trip pictures up
beneath the footing of our daily passage.
Above, parted, are our stars.

One, singular, falls --
a smoking jewel wondering
and sluffing off the expanse of night.

The willows shudder, and we make our wishes

beneath the stars which haven’t fallen.
I look for anything worthwhile.
I search constellations
hoping to find out how and why it is
I’m here with you.
 
c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2009

Testimony

Your body is bound in time, cords of colorand streaks of light.  Pressure points
and painful lines converge
and this is your testimony. No witness
to bear their thoughts
as you gently come undone.


This is the first day of spring,
and you its first humble wren of sorrow.
You dare look into the sun.



A tiny earthquake rattles a new earth.
You shake too, knowing it will not be forever
and there will certainly be rain.


c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2009

Slipping Away

I slipped away to Texas and was invincible,
I had no middle name, nobody knew
I was already twenty-eight
or that I preferred martinis at the Ten Club
because of the chocolate strawberry
hanging on the lip of the glass.

I was living here and there,
touching bases called Easter
Christmas and my father's retirement party.
Holiday gifts from Mexico,
but gray space in between.

Living there and here it's easy
to get caught in the middle.

Slipping away was having
no last name or favorite color,
going from Tuesday to Saturday in one breath
and never recalling small things

like the smell of home and the old tavern
in Spring Lake where you can still get a drink
for two bucks any day.

(In Reynosa the margaritas are only fifty cents.)
At three a.m. drunk on good tequila
when I stumbled to my door no one knew back home
that I had driven blindly on a foggy night,
seeing patches of road but missing my exit.

It takes twice as long to get somewhere
when you can't see what's in front of you.

This is slipping away.



c. Melissa K. Dalman, 2001

Crux, 1992

I am not comforted by knowing
that he bleeds from his hands and his side
while I rest two thousand years away.
It doesn't make tears stop coming
to think of him with arms
stretched wide as darkness
falls over everything.

I cannot be reached by promises
nor by crucifixion. I can't be bought
by words I've memorized and never understood.

My knees bent I
cannot take this drink. Too much
wine already runs my veins
and holy blood is not shed
to mix with mine.

I want to listen
to whispers that have fallen
silent. I know now
how the shallow breath of prayer is deep
and grace is not a word I hear in church
and write off with a grin and wait
for gods to fall over me when I
cannot pray or hope or hate.

The words I want to feel are alive
but not in me.

A golden cross
strung from the ceiling
reflects the lights from the sanctuary.
I approach the altar pray
I will be strong enough to fall
on my knees again like all the others
and believe.

When the wine
touches my lips I am changed
if only for a moment; I am part god,
part anger and I can taste only wine
not blood.
                         Let this cup pass from me.

c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1992

Ash Wednesday

I am wearing your shirt
and it smells like cinnamon, sweet
vanilla, Chianti. I watch the clock, humming the minutes
till you come home.

The moon is fighting
with winter’s wilting hands, threatening spring.
I am warm and nearly blind, staring into the fire, one ear

always listening for the welcome whir
of the garage door opening, your footsteps
shuffling across the cement, the turn
of the doorknob and the occasional
accidental setting off of the burglar alarm
cutting through the easy night with cries
sharper than the screams of an angry woman.

Tonight, I’ve offset the alarm and you come in
smelling like bread and beer, cigarette smoke
and draw me to you, weak with hunger and with thirst.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008

Behind the House

I planted marigolds
to soften and color the perimeter
of our shed. As they fade
to peach and die I lay my heart down
written in stone and weathered
by the unrelenting seasons.

My love lay like webs
curled and half buried
with empty husks where baby spiders
emerge, primitive and hungry
and the words can not be read anymore but it doesn’t matter
as the branding never fades.

It never fades. I kiss the sweat off your shoulders
as they shudder and I taste the salt
of dusty boat launches, of hours alone
with books and pens and paper,
of televisions blaring the same movies and dreams.

You sing the low down you done
cheated me blues and chased a million

stinging bees into the mists
fast as an electric hummingbird sucking
liquid meth out of a feeder covered in
DARE stickers hanging off a tree
out behind the house.

Your fists rock

and you drum
the beats of the margins and lines
and in your rhythmic
staccato blasts out behind the shed
you sing to the only angel you'll ever know.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008

University Park, Chicago

In a field of statues, you
and I are laughing at the pigeons, breaking open
a warm, ripe pomegranate which you tell me
is the fruit of good intentions. We eat to fill
but the seeds are small, and we are starving.
It’s spring and everything is flowering.


We talk about this, and about the end of courses,
a wedding, a distant dream of Europe.
All this hope, our very best


smiles fighting off this darkness coming up in me.
I can barely see its face, don’t know its name, yet
I welcome it as a friend, become enraptured
in the idea of blackness, as in love.
I am in love


and nothing here makes sense. We drink another glass of wine
and toast the skyline, disbelieving.

c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1994

Turnings

for my father


In gardens he still

works the ground until it gives
and turns beneath the steady weight
of the till.

My father, stronger than the devil, never
knew to whisper soft to daughters
who needed him.


But to the fields
of dill and strawberries and sometimes
rows and rows of giant
flowers I never could name, he
spoke gently, making everything turn
softly toward the sound of him.


On summer nights he let me
ride the tractor wheel
and I watched earth turn
while he sat silently behind,
the statue of my childhood,
whispering soft to the rising stalks of corn
while guiding the course of the tractor
and my life.


A quiet northern breeze always came
gently from somewhere beyond
dark red blueberry fields,

blowing his breath into my hair.

c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1993

Confessional

Fresh cut flowers on my bureau

scatter your breath around my room.
Each day I am astounded again
by my silence.


I have not spoken for weeks


though I have whispered angry prayers
and I have borrowed sighs from the wind.


Joy is a word rusty from neglect. I am
the Holy Mary of Remorse, lighting candles
to your absence and sending out a prayer
before snuffing out your memory
and damning you for your sins.


I stand in paraffin, my feet steadfast,
my blood coursing, dancing
beneath my pale skin.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2007

Composting

Mid-summer I ripped up all the brown-eyed susans,

imagining your brown thumb's reproach
as I fed them to the tiny heap.
Self-seeded poppies join the growing
mound by bushels in September,
along with rhubarb, corn stalks,
over-ripe tomatoes. I dump out


exhausted soil from indoor pots,
impatiens dreary from the summer sun
and yards and yards of grapevine
topped off by cabbage heads
reduced to stench and slime from early frost.


When winter came so did the flu.
I was sick with it most of the season,
dreaming deliriously of being barrowed out
to toss with the pungent brussel sprouts.
but finally spring came, and my fever broke.


So here I am at the pile, and I
with you, am gloriously overcome.


The trash we sorted has nurtured every root
and my strawberries are coming up like ants.


c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2007

Nine Months

Nine months has come and gone.
Nothing is what it was and
too much is the same.


I look out the kitchen window
at the yard, full of boxes and yesterdays
and zinnias and sunflowers too
not knowing at the time how important
the sprouting of seeds could be.

The backyard is spotty, patchy
where the dogs had come in after the geese.
The house has become empty walls.

You’ve unearthed the trueness of yourself
and I am having your child.


Inside, the walls hold me
weeping every time you let me down
and they no longer sustain me.
There are cobwebs, dirty tiles.


You step into the morning
and speak with eyes
your misgiven love for what those walls gave
when we needed it the most.

Who do you love, baby? Who do you love?


c. Melissa K. Dalman, 2005

Silences

Summer


My mother gave me diamonds
when I was nine. I took them
with clumsy hands, emptied them
from the blue satin satchel, then
took them outside to see
what colors they made when
the sunlight settled over them.


Wanting to see a pathway of stars, I
tossed them into the drive
and delighted in the way the streams of
light danced across the yard, and all the rocks --
even the gravel -- changed from gray and brown
to silver and blue and gold.

I called to the window for her to come and see
the heaven of stones outside, to come and feel
the way a sack of stars scattered
made the whole day seem part of a dream
when you wake and find your pillow damp
with tears, smiling.


But the look on her face
when she set eyes on my rapture
of rainbows rising over the drive --
when she saw the gift thrown away, just
tossed outside like yesterday’s trash -- told me

I had wounded her by failing
to see what she meant.

      The silence between us now
      is like the silence between us then.
      My delight is her dismay, again.
      Opening my throat is like opening a bottle of sand
      and pouring it over the words
      I almost said.
                               I couldn't speak.
                               Not then, not now.


Autumn

Autumn always brought geese, v-shaped flocks
flying south. She would take me outside, point

to the sky, show me
the wonder there: she saw it


for a second that flickered like a falling leaf, caught it
like one catches a glimpse of a diamond
before it is swallowed in the sand.


And then she sad that the wind was cold
and that it was no wonder the birds went south.

My mother hated fall.
The browns, the golds, the rusts
could only mean one thing: death.
Summer was dying
and soon the windows would be covered with frost.

I bathed in the leaves
that had drifted into beds of color.
I could taste life
in the smell of them, could live there
forever.


          The silence was cool. She was inside.
          I was here.


Winter


The world was white with wonder, and I
was no better for it. I watched from within
while the wind howled at the windows, while Jack Frost
etched diamond secrets on the panes.


Once the last black cloud had drifted eastward, she dressed me
in my warmest, wrapped me tight like a tiny Jesus so tight
I couldn’t touch my boots. Then she took me
to the outside magic land of wonder, all new.


Her eyes sparkled like icicles, warming in the sun,
and she seemed so much a part of the masterpiece
until she ran inside
to escape Old Man Winter’s cold hands.


                                            But I let them catch me.


          Sometimes I lie in the snow
          and talk to Orion.  The geese are south;
          I am older.  She is inside.
                           There is no silence like this.


Spring

The April lake is still as cold
as frostbite, but the air is changing.
I can see her changing.

Her face is brighter, the color of new roses

blossoming on her cheeks.


I am sure that spring is here.


There are no patches of white on the ground, no ice
hanging from the roof.  Easter lilies
are growing by the clothesline.

Resurrection is blooming like geraniums
and I feel it breathing in my hair.


She has given me her diamond necklace.
I take it with slender white hands, tie
the silver clasp tightly around my neck.
 
She says I seem so much a lady.
 
I feel the cool of diamonds burning on my neck and wonder
at how they are so cautiously strung
                                                         never to be scattered.


They glisten like a circle of stars
about my neck, though I’m not so sure diamonds
were fashioned for daughters like me.


c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1993

Gone Fishing

You’ve never been one to fish,

but you wait patiently as I do.


We’ve been on the boat for hours
without one catch. Not a single snapshot
to tape to the refrigerator, Caught that walleye
at the Willows, I might say.


Not one catch.  


I work at the bait shop

to pay for my fancy for trendy clothes
and for your addiction. I look good in blue.
And you’ve got that new tattoo on your right arm.


You buy my worms and hooks.
and the fish take it all for free
but avoid the hook.

The water turns from clear to cloudy
as the sky darkens and the horizon is bright with endings.


I make my way to the back of the boat, to the tackle box
and the cooler. I wish I could say why it is that I come
and bring you here with me.


The water reflects in the murky bank.
The sun threatens to disappear.

Behind the walls of the willows
is a backdrop of cottony clouds.
I can see the fish in the river
peering at me through the moving tide.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2007

30

Thirty is here, rusty
ghost, dumb thumb suckerfish old maid card
in a losing game.

I am mad. (no really mad          gone
for the longest hike    screws falling out dark scary elevator marbles
long gone blood curdles skin creeps)

Already thirty and still alone, wasted time lies
like roadkill behind me.

A promising young woman at nineteen becomes
the lumpy old hag at thirty.
Becomes a wasteland of old toys and memorabilia
that should have been chucked at twenty-five.

I fight strange urges every day,
to rainbow stripe my hair
or break my leg. I’ve had two concussions this year

though I hardly think they are to be blamed
for this walking horror show zombie doll
tired and also dumb. Slightly sad
blowing out candles on a cake decorated with stars.

My Message

Bland scarlet birds scatter
across the grotesque late March snow.

The fiery warning of sunset grinds closer
to the dunes, who cringe from its flames.

I draw the blinds, but looking out the window
all I see is my reflection, a pebble face
with snow for eyes.

A carbon monoxide song, I can’t
hear it, cries danger, cries loss, cries shame.

I count my fingers, check my throat.
I put my hand in front of my mouth,
feel the heat from my breath.

It’s warm, and smells like frost.

August Collection

Eventually everything falls into place, into slender white arms collecting loosestrife and lace.Carp rotting on the shores of the Grand, a stench pungent and flowing into the gentle grass. The river starts inland on the hills from where it divides into rivulets like a crying child.I cast my lure, timing the hum of the reel.
I wash myself in the murky waters of the river.
It sings a song, bearing new things to come.

It is finally alive
with cattails and willows and reeds.
A turtle tumbles off a rock without a splash.
The basement of this river doesn’t want to be touched.

It is muck and algae and catfish and leeches.
But from above, it caresses me

and speaks words reliable
as the wind, or as a rock on the riverbank. The sun begins to set. Fish jump at dragonflies.

My reel spins. The river is spinning. You are a river.

Fishing for Bass

My sneakers go well with my long legsand my jeans from the thrift store.I ride shotgun, not minding the gravel as it bounces us around
to Indian Channel where we put the boat in.

I hold the ropes. You step around to nobly offer
a hand, which I bypass and step to the grey and white carpet of the boat.

I dip a delicate hand into the waters –it is warm, good for fish. As we speed to the bayou
I am flying, imagining Viking ships
and roaming cruise liners alike.
I would wear heels and a satin dress, empress waistline and a slit from the calve to the hip.
I think the color would be bright blue
as the waters over which we glide.

We settle near the lily pads to fish for bass.
You are an expert; I, your apprentice.
I have not caught one thing. But you untangle my lines,
teach me to thread the worm onto the hook
and cast, and I know that I am loved

because you brought me here.

Ordinary Things

(Second Place winner in the Winterfest 2005 Poetry Contest, Grand Haven, MI)


She peels off her day, slip, brassiere, panties, layers nurtured for an audience.
At the open window she strips off nylons, the cross at her neck, flings hairpins
onto her bureau then leans naked over the sill, and stares down into the city.
In its bat blackness and stark white lights, blinking, she balls up her stockings
and takes aim.

Below, a man snatches a sheer-dangled leg, rips the ghost
of her foot as it catches on the dumpster's open gap.
He sniffs the remnants of her ordinary day; ankles crossed
under a desk, imagined feet clacking
on pavement as she runs. She wears a pink scarf flared
at the throat as she tries to make the bus, her heel slipping
in and out of her toe.

This man has stumbled across the history of a woman's foot scribbled to the quickened draw of his lip, upward to nostril.

His pulse quickens as she turns out the light.

No Need to See You

for Michael


How many lifetimes have I listened
to the waterfalls of your voice, the waltz
of your laugh? The meter of your steps, measured
and sure, the sigh of your breath, the sweet
slam of the door when you are coming home.

When it’s you on the line, I know
that draw of your breath before you speak.

With you near, the air turns to cinnamon,
vanilla, willows breathe grass and everything
is suddenly early May.

When you leave, you scatter
the scent of mimosas and rain.
I’m left with the aftertaste
of a fabulous tawny port,
my ears -- they sing!

If I were a blind woman in a crowded room, I would know you.

Highway 9 at Midnight

Anymore, I don’t care so much
about speed bumps, stop signs, fifth floor ledges,
you.


I watch your eyes like stoplights, the warnings
always present, signaling when to stop
or go or take a turn. I can hear you, can see
you there with warm arms and promises; but

with you I could never be
what I needed to keep me
strong and upright, could never
hold what I knew it was
all burning inside where the anger
and the cool lamp of what it is I love about you
are the same.

I never tire of this,
trying to find you where you are not.
I will keep moving, keep my fists tight
on the wheel, knowing that now

there is just this road,
this long flat of Indiana
empty fields and a sign
telling me to stop soon.But I keep driving, zoning
into the yellow lines drawn to keep me
from passing,

and the wild shoulder of the road sprinting by.