Portrait, 1985

The young mother spends all day picking things up from the floor

and re-sorting them onto shelves, folding sheets

flat into drawers. Small hands pull toys down,

books out of cases. Gravity is the opening and closing

of fists, the small sucking mouths.

Here is the house

staked out in straight lines. It is

a flat piece of paper, it could blow

over at any time. The windows

reflect the world

backwards,

onto itself.

Much more of this and he will collapse—up at dawn, work till dark,

home to the house with its high ceilings, the fractured riot

of his family. The criminals he spends his days defending are easier than this,

their cells seem more like sectioned-off spaces: calm, spare. When he sees the mirror

cupping him in its palm he can’t help the shock at his own body,

still so young and upright within its frame.

She wants to forget her past, the small shoddy house in Milwaukee,

(the silent eyes of her father, well-oiled cogs). All she has brought with her

into this life are the pictures from pageants, her costumed poses—these

are what she will show her children. She lops off everything else behind,

clean as an animal chewing itself out of a trap.

E-mail: courtneyqueeney@hotmail.com


Back to Poetry Page
[Back to top]