Three Poems from Heart First into the Forest

Trespass

          for my mother

     Once

   when you could still smell the green on me

back when your looking old was new

we ran to the dark churchyard
            and under God’s empty bell.

The dimmed silver held us in its huddle.

Its walls refused
     the lawn’s stichic hieroglyphics.

It was colder than moon.

Together we pushed its great weight up
                                                                                                     
           but nothing.
           
Its round rim could only mouth mother
to the night.

A lark then.
         An absent cloud.

 The bell with its tonsil out.

   The three of us unable to make a sound.

The Insecticide in Him

Leaning against the stubborn shed, my brother looks right
and sinister with his shirt untucked.

He is a hopscotch-skip away,
speculating what a second tongue tastes like, the contents
of a schoolgirl’s skirt, about babies: how one plus one makes three.

He clacks his gum, his tongue a pin in a pink balloon.

With a start, he pulls a firefly from the marmalade jar,
a pulse of magic and flint blaring Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! on his knuckle.
 
In this light, he looks more like an x-ray of a boy.

He stares square into the insect glow, twists its wings and tosses them back
into the air, snaps his fist closed and holds its half-beam body to my nose
so I can see: its insides are a contortionist’s kiss, the sorry smell of blood and iron.

He says witches live in their guts.

He is always teaching me these things, like how the business
section makes the best-floating boats, and some stars even wear belts.
How when the man comes home to the wife, he fits perfectly inside.

From a Dance Manual

for my father
            Treat me nice, treat me good, treat me like you really should.
            ‘Cause I’m not made of wood. And I don’t have a wooden heart.
                                                Elvis Presley

Snip the cranky thing from its crib.
Rest its potato-scented head against your lapel

and carry its teacup weight, the world’s
youngest antique in your arms.

Then permit the rug your promenade.
Follow imagined dance-map feet.

Behändel sie gut.

Sing, scavenger of the lowest notes.
Make your way through the German verse,

that bit of violence in the back of your throat.
Behändel sie gut, Behändel sie gut.

On TV, the second shuttle’s success.
Outside, the ambient logic of snow.
You’ve lost your job. You dance.

Past the mantel’s burden, past each bashful knick-knack.
Hum, and she will grow to be gruff enough.

Past the blue-gray glances from the photographs.
Bellow, and she will be burr fierce. Coo.

Past the wreath, the hearth, the paisleys in their frenzy
on the ironing board, sway.

And she will chase ghosts and wolves away.
Twist, and men will treat her well. Whirl.

Past the patience of the piebald hobbyhorse,
treat her good, treat her good.

Sing, and the thing will fossilize.
Dance, and it will petrify.
Her heart will be a beating bit of bark.

Behändel sie gut.
Treat her good, and it will turn into wood.

© 2012 Stacy Gnall