Glenna Luschei


Orchard

Morning sun pullls up the guywires.
The early spider
tosses lines
from avocado to berryvine.

I plow up from underground
in time for the seeding.

How could I eat the pomegranate seeds?
Why did I spend my life sleeping?


The Tinder Box

You are far away.

States
are crossing blocks
I must step.
Rivers
dogs with cooper eyes.

My starving mare
eats
her mane.
The coals are watching us.

Bonfires.
Wigwams.


Marrakech

Only their eyes showing,
camel drivers in blue turbans
have driven here with their carpets.
My guilt rides in on golden ponies,
guilds the minarets.
You asked me to make this journey
with you through the garden of Allah
open only on Fridays.
I chose to keep my prior appointment.
You kept your appointment.
Now I steal the memories
from the coins in the market,
from the eyes of the dead.

We would have hired the guide to Shepard us
through the market teeming
with mint, cilantro and roast chicken.

We would have found the herbalist
to cure you
and finally removed our veils
talking over our seperation
which we both healed apart.
As ti was, you rode the camel alone.
I kept the Christmas card.


Standing In Line

I am just waiting my place
behind the others. No shoving.

Will I go gentle like the ones
who went before?

Or will I bolt like the astrologer
who carried his pallet

into the desert on the day
forecast for his death?

Nothing could attack him there
except the swallow that dropped

the fatal pebble on his head.

-all poems from her collection "Witch Death"