Sally Van Doren
3 poems
**
Adolescence
Worry is the name of my pet push-me-pull-you.
I keep her in a pen with my husband’s python.
They’re both robust, too healthy.
One tendentious word and they spat like gladiators.
Good thing I inherited that bronze chariot
from my grandfather. He taught me how to escape
from invasive species. When discontinuity
threatens to deport me from this cautious zoo
I call home, my exotics and I gallop
out of the arena. If the Colosseum lures us in,
we’re goners, but for the secret agents
of our phonetic exits. That’s why we practice
harness holds and spear thrusts.
My husband can dismount me in one fell swoop.
Our offspring train with the master.
**
Less Than One
For A. Z.
I won’t remember the lenient
protocol that allowed me
to eavesdrop on the advent
of your laminate incision.
We disguised our rapport
with moss and illicit
fluorines. In the disquiet
we hemorrhaged to zero.
But my resolute cramps washed
away the debris stuccoed
to your anatomy. Your horoscope
said, “Beware sodium and diesel.”
For a nickel, I licked copper
and each mellifluous drop
saturated my new authentic
climate. Bless you, America,
for your reticent nuclear inter-
ruptions. We’re torn sleep
on a platinum pillow. We
make water turn to rain.
**
Variegated
I could amass one hundred re-imagined
memories to create an incantation
of loss. When you retired, the lens
magnifying this riot flew to bits
in a new celestial Calcutta I’ll call
DADA’s baby. Patter. Chatter.
Paraplegic letters looping in arcs
over the magnetic dome pulling
them down with spicy subjugation.
I’ll hazard that my adroit autism
clears the chlorine from your neophyte
chest. The rest is gathered under
the sycamore, resting, this prodigy
species that rests, takes a break,
sleeps, because our machines
are wedded to energy and one kind word
makes the rain fall faster, harder.
**
return to sawbuck 3.1
**
Sally Van Doren lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and Cornwall, Connecticut. Her book, Sex at Noon Taxes, which won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, was published by Louisiana State University Press in spring 2008. Her poems appear recently or are forthcoming in: American Poet, anti-, Crayon, 5AM, Margie, Ping Pong, Southwest Review and Verse Daily.
**
Adolescence
Worry is the name of my pet push-me-pull-you.
I keep her in a pen with my husband’s python.
They’re both robust, too healthy.
One tendentious word and they spat like gladiators.
Good thing I inherited that bronze chariot
from my grandfather. He taught me how to escape
from invasive species. When discontinuity
threatens to deport me from this cautious zoo
I call home, my exotics and I gallop
out of the arena. If the Colosseum lures us in,
we’re goners, but for the secret agents
of our phonetic exits. That’s why we practice
harness holds and spear thrusts.
My husband can dismount me in one fell swoop.
Our offspring train with the master.
**
Less Than One
For A. Z.
I won’t remember the lenient
protocol that allowed me
to eavesdrop on the advent
of your laminate incision.
We disguised our rapport
with moss and illicit
fluorines. In the disquiet
we hemorrhaged to zero.
But my resolute cramps washed
away the debris stuccoed
to your anatomy. Your horoscope
said, “Beware sodium and diesel.”
For a nickel, I licked copper
and each mellifluous drop
saturated my new authentic
climate. Bless you, America,
for your reticent nuclear inter-
ruptions. We’re torn sleep
on a platinum pillow. We
make water turn to rain.
**
Variegated
I could amass one hundred re-imagined
memories to create an incantation
of loss. When you retired, the lens
magnifying this riot flew to bits
in a new celestial Calcutta I’ll call
DADA’s baby. Patter. Chatter.
Paraplegic letters looping in arcs
over the magnetic dome pulling
them down with spicy subjugation.
I’ll hazard that my adroit autism
clears the chlorine from your neophyte
chest. The rest is gathered under
the sycamore, resting, this prodigy
species that rests, takes a break,
sleeps, because our machines
are wedded to energy and one kind word
makes the rain fall faster, harder.
**
return to sawbuck 3.1
**
Sally Van Doren lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and Cornwall, Connecticut. Her book, Sex at Noon Taxes, which won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, was published by Louisiana State University Press in spring 2008. Her poems appear recently or are forthcoming in: American Poet, anti-, Crayon, 5AM, Margie, Ping Pong, Southwest Review and Verse Daily.
Labels: 3.1, sally van doren
