By Fran LeMoine
A single thread
sliced
through
the
flesh
of an infant's
new
finger.
The baby cried and cried
until the new mother
disentangled the
tiny
blue
finger.
The panic made it
take a little longer.
She never let the baby cry again.
That might have been a mistake.
***
"Getting Old"
By Fran LeMoine
He misses
the old photographs
where everyone had
ruby eyes
and occasionally
the top of a head or two
didn't make it in.
***
"Arithmetic"
By Fran LeMoine
The smell of sharpened pencils,
Hard-to-remember symbols
and tables,
wrong answers
and a couple of slaps.
No wonder nothing adds up.
***
"Carelessness"
By Fran LeMoine
She stood at the water's edge
wearing black high-top
Chuck Taylors,
screaming white sox,
tuba-red shorts
and a lilac tank top.
She is squinting.
The water behind her
looks thickish, murky.
Less than a dozen feet
from her toes
is an alligator,
maybe watching her pose
from his dank turf.
She doesn't know he's there.
***
"Poker Game"
By Fran LeMoine
He had seven rolls
of quarters
in front of him
and a wad
of bills
in his pocket.
He looked like
he owned the world
that night.
Or at least the game.
Flush beats three of a kind, my man.
Into the wad.
***
"She Craves A State"
By Fran LeMoine
She craves a state
absent of
mindless longing.
She wants to die.
But not the way the Buddhists mean.
***
"Wound "
By Fran LeMoine
A deep cut of noise,
her screaming at him
that way.
All he did was
forget to listen.
He said he was sorry.
The wound can only be healed
by sutures of silence
and she won't shut up.
***
"Emerald"
By Fran LeMoine
for Marion
Water somewhere far from here
Ireland
Jealousy
June grass
A birthstone
That city
Your eyes
When you cry.
***
"Your Philosphy Over The Phone"
By Fran LeMoine
Uh-oh.
Here you are again.
Pouring out
your take on things
in your Nyquil voice
and with jailhouse sincerity.
Trying to sell me
a taste of inspiration
that even you won't swallow.
If I hang up,
you'll call back.
Luckily,
my "hmmmms" are in good shape.
***
"Untitled "
By Fran LeMoine
He wrote a book of poems entitled
A Biography in Scars.
A book that made his wife laugh
and his mistress spill tears
like a waterfall
into a shot glass.
Who does he love?
He doesn't know.
***
"If It Rained"
By Fran LeMoine
If it rained
haikus
printed on
origami birds,
you still would not read them.
***
"Curb"
By Fran LeMoine
Is a curb
a blind man's horizon?
He'll ask him if
he ever meets one.
***
"Springs"
By Fran LeMoine
The springs of his bed
stubbornly jutted out here,
sproinged there,
reminding him that
she used to be here, too.
***
"One of Chagall's Paintings"
By Fran LeMoine
The calamity of
dry buildings
cracking crumbling
fleeing faces
an army of red flags
approaching
a blackboard sky
sobbing stars
Christ crucified
expiring
like a coupon
Apostles scurrying
to their hotel room
"Did he really say,
'Father why has thou
forsaken me?'
and they whisper of Judas,
one eye on the door
rustling agony inside
and out and
Thomas, free of faith,
prays for the gift of it
flames sputter spit splash
from the right towards the Christ
He is let down from the cross
ex-crucified
excruciating
the frenzy
the vortex
That painting stuck with me somehow.
***
"Twelve Years of LiCO3"
By Fran LeMoine
Damp and frayed plaid blanket
to squelch the searing images,
the fiery shadows of metaphors,
crimson, sputtering notions
and flickering similes.
A brake pedal,
mean-spirited,
presses down and down,
asphyxiating infant poetry
suffocating newborn prose.
Verbs nouns
fence around her heart,
they whisper in her ear
too low, too low
dictionary burned and buried?
language sentenced, imprisoned?
forgotten?
The lid on the pot
stole the smells from the kitchen.
sixty-four crayons replaced with eight
and say, "Thank you."
Damp blankets nourish mold.
***
"Samoan Laundromat"
By Fran LeMoine
She used to go to
the Samoan laundromat.
For company.
She'd get the clothes washed, too,
but she could have done that
at home
in her basement.
She liked to listen to the
Samoans talk.
She didn't understand a word,
but she understood the laughs.
Their laughs
made her feel
a little bit
like she was flying.
***
"Ecru"
By Fran LeMoine
He'd been drinking for a couple of days.
When he awoke,
he noticed the stain on the gray rug
("ecru," he thinks she called it)
The stain on the carpet
formed a long and lovely necklace
of rubies, milk, ashes and orange peels.
He knew she wouldn't like it.
***
"Curator"
By Fran LeMoine
In the refrigerator,
there's a Kahlua Mudslide
on the top shelf near the light bulb.
The fridge is filthy.
It needs scrubbing.
I t has to be emptied first.
He can't bring himself to
move the Mudslide,
though he stopped drinking
four years ago.
The mudslide reminds him of her.
He won't disturb the bottle.
And that's just the top shelf.
***
"Everybody in This Movie is Dead"
By Fran LeMoine
Being here with you now,
it's just like watching old movies.
I watch "Potemkin" and I say,
"Everybody in this movie is dead!"
I'd go home if I wasn't already there.
***
"Why He Doesn't Like Rabbits"
By Fran LeMoine
He saw one bonked on the head,
then skinned alive
before his eyes
when he was nine years old
No warning for the rabbit.
Less for him.
That's why.