FORMS OF INTERCESSION

1.
Today I am medium rare. Don't touch me.
The yellow envelope brought bad news.
Shall I mark it "Return to Sender" or shred it with my teeth?
If you came with a dull knife, go home.
I crave salt, rain, and the white taste of glue.

2.
Across the street, a little girl rocks her doll on her knee.
The pedophile who lives next door demands she remove the diaper
and show him the little piss-hole drilled between its legs.
He strokes the plastic opening until he can barely breathe.

3.
Why is there never any lemonade in this house?
The eternal optimist must be on strike. Maybe she moved on
with her oil-slick jeans and knapsack of books.
I once braided her hair and fell asleep
in the crook of her arm. There are days I still miss her.

4.
Rumor has it no one can kill a snake plant.
Along the edges mine is turning brown.
At night, I lie awake and contemplate
the ways I might trim the leaves so no one can tell.

5.
There is more hope in a cup of coffee
than a stack of holy books, unless you count
books of poems, paper chariots of the profane.
Someone is shredding Billy Collins' poems.
I forgot to ask why. I suspect one of his nine
horses took to sailing around the room.

6.
In my secret life, angels consort with horses.
I've chosen to tell no one.

7.
These days, I'm torn between picking scabs
and charting my future in the stars.
Every night I promise to sleep late the next morning,
only to wake at first light, convinced the lines in my hands
deepen while I dream. Soon my lifeline will reach bone.

8.
At forty-three, I'm too old to wait on a redeemer.
Sometimes you must intercede on your own behalf.
I'm spreading tarot cards on the ground
and tossing out the ones that land upside down.


Jayne Pupek

This poem is from my first collection, Forms of Intercession, Mayapple Press, 2008. The poem first appeared in Wicked Alice.