Margaret Bashaar
VI. On remembrance of death
This is the room we all enter in the end―
the room with the unlocked door,
the room with honey wood walls,
the room with a ceiling that always
brushes the top of the head
no matter how curved the back.
There is space enough to lay the body down,
to walk away from it once and for all.
XIV. On that clamorous mistress, the stomach
Her thin voice after my skin hummed to its edges,
after all the chatter in my body became a roar,
after I knew the shape of my belly like I saw it under glass,
after I watched the ground seethe with beetles the size of each of my fingers,
after I smelled wood smoke and cedar in the hot earth,
after I forgot to miss speaking,
after the eagle circled me, then the hawk, the vulture, the barred owl
after my throat cracked parallel to the horizon
after I dreamt of shambling hordes and our hands, cut off
and the night and my body were the same.
XXIV. On meekness, simplicity, and guilelessness, which come not from nature but
from conscious effort, and on guile
If I love you I will knit you lace,
snip each split end from my hair
one by one before I come to see you.
If I love you I will think of you
when I bite the skin at the corners
of my fingernails, when my skirt
catches on the bent edge
of the metal stair guard. I will wear more
clothing each time we meet.
I will be boisterous.
I am not certain how to catalog
each eye blink, chart the quickness
of my breath compared to a rabbit.
I am not sure what all of this is -
the opening and closing of my mouth.
I do not know if my fist hovers
an inch from your door for all this
trembling, or because some
corner of my brain is running
a secret algorithm.
Do not press your ear to the doorjamb
with a glass of water―
I am a whole herd of rhinoceros
each time I run past your door.
Remember to shave your head
when you know I am coming to call, darling.
Always put your shirt on backwards
in the dark, be ready to spring
from your chair when I finally
learn how to knock.
Margaret Bashaar's second chapbook, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel was published by Blood Pudding Press in 2011. Her poetry has also appeared in journals such as elimae, Caketrain, Menacing Hedge, New South and elsewhere. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA where she edits the chapbook press Hyacinth Girl Press.
Return to November 2012 Edition
This is the room we all enter in the end―
the room with the unlocked door,
the room with honey wood walls,
the room with a ceiling that always
brushes the top of the head
no matter how curved the back.
There is space enough to lay the body down,
to walk away from it once and for all.
XIV. On that clamorous mistress, the stomach
Her thin voice after my skin hummed to its edges,
after all the chatter in my body became a roar,
after I knew the shape of my belly like I saw it under glass,
after I watched the ground seethe with beetles the size of each of my fingers,
after I smelled wood smoke and cedar in the hot earth,
after I forgot to miss speaking,
after the eagle circled me, then the hawk, the vulture, the barred owl
after my throat cracked parallel to the horizon
after I dreamt of shambling hordes and our hands, cut off
and the night and my body were the same.
XXIV. On meekness, simplicity, and guilelessness, which come not from nature but
from conscious effort, and on guile
If I love you I will knit you lace,
snip each split end from my hair
one by one before I come to see you.
If I love you I will think of you
when I bite the skin at the corners
of my fingernails, when my skirt
catches on the bent edge
of the metal stair guard. I will wear more
clothing each time we meet.
I will be boisterous.
I am not certain how to catalog
each eye blink, chart the quickness
of my breath compared to a rabbit.
I am not sure what all of this is -
the opening and closing of my mouth.
I do not know if my fist hovers
an inch from your door for all this
trembling, or because some
corner of my brain is running
a secret algorithm.
Do not press your ear to the doorjamb
with a glass of water―
I am a whole herd of rhinoceros
each time I run past your door.
Remember to shave your head
when you know I am coming to call, darling.
Always put your shirt on backwards
in the dark, be ready to spring
from your chair when I finally
learn how to knock.
Margaret Bashaar's second chapbook, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel was published by Blood Pudding Press in 2011. Her poetry has also appeared in journals such as elimae, Caketrain, Menacing Hedge, New South and elsewhere. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA where she edits the chapbook press Hyacinth Girl Press.
Return to November 2012 Edition