The midnight hammer of new siding come loose and banging
against hundred year-old planks
his ear cocked for the lash of limbs
the heartbeat-burp-thrash under my skin
The stalactite of ice and sand that hangs from the wheel well
and kicked one-two-three taps
falls under the tires like the sudden
but total calving of an iceberg
The luscious feel of the orange forgotten on the lip of the tub
even though the peel has pulled away
hardening around the place where I bit down
grunting as I lever myself out of the bath
The golden light of late afternoon bouncing from window to window
and never quite making it down to the street
his hand on my leg as we circle the block again
the heater working
3 comments:
Ariel, A possible solution for the "he" confusion. What if you changed the pronoun to "our ears" then we know it's a couple, and later when the he comes in, we're prepared. I like how you have a progression from cold to warm in the poem now, but I miss the associations of the original, the limbs, the way images suggested each other. Now, in this version, I'm not sure what the orange is doing per se. Okay that's all my dollar store comments on this one.
Beautiful. I think you could lose the word "come" in stanza one, line one and "from" in stanza four, line one. Otherwise, no suggestions (or are suggestions actually desired? I'm never sure with poems posted on blogs.)
Bren - As you may have guessed from the various drafts of this poem that I posted over at May Day as well as here, I found it difficult to get a firm hold on the different elements/images of this poem, so your comments as I tried different configurations are a very good thing.
For some reason, the comments on this one reminded me of taps on a watermelon, in that they let me know which lines were ripe-ish and which weren't...
Hey Lindsey - thanks for your kind words and also your suggestions. While comments of the constructive variety are not required on stuff I post to the blog, I always appreciate them....
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