Thrush Poetry Journal
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E. C. Messer


Photograph of Alice Pleasance Liddell, 1858


Her bisque head grows
in the Garden of Live Dolls,

toes fidget with the stems
of morning glories, nasturtiums, ivy,
some creeping plant.

I remember
―
           two twos are four,
           two threes are six,
           two fours are eight.

Charlie’s beggar-maid,
his little rat

           two fives are ten

(before Marie van Goethem,
La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans
―
wax, plaster, bronze―

so continental
in real cotton skirt
and hair ribbon).

A dragon-catcher whisps by,

           What is that trumpeted
           ground flower?
           Do you remember your plants
           as well as your numbers?

it sticks in the flypaper
―

silly yellow pistil,
silly tight red throat.

           three threes are nine,
           three fours are twelve,
           yes, yes, I remember.

A beetle swaps its topcoat
for her nostrils,
her little black dots
of breath,

           I really don’t care for maths,

her clavicle and scapula,
her six-year-old knees.




E.C. Messer lives in the sunniest part of San Francisco with her husband and four cats. Follow her on Twitter @ecmesser. 

She would like very much to know you.




Return to July 2015 Edition