Lisa Ciccarello
6 poems
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
Color: the way we know time passes. The light is gold & becomes another color later. The light is a garden when it breaks the window. We are stilled. I am cutting my hands on what now.
Magic of the cut & fold. In the spell, the words need us to be as the dead; swaddled in the spoken sound it is hard to make the motion of breathing. But O our voices shake in our paused throats. By breath the blades turn.
Knot in the sheet & in the hair drawn up into the fist like a rope. Like one of us is climbing. All fist-full & bent to the ankle. All the shift in what you saw before you: but the rope & what you would do. Bury is a safety.
I lick the teeth planted in the soil of yr mouth. The tongue burns. What you said you said it out loud & the look was like moving backwards. The teeth planted in the soil of yr skin.
The light you have drawn me is gold. It illuminates nothing. Hair slips from behind the ear. This too is only about time.
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
He speaks the story, same story even when the house is empty. We place the crumbs on the windowsill. We think we will see them when we walk by the glass. It is such a long walk. We stay inside. We think we see them.
The warble is the scrape of feather on bark: birds worm their way into the bushes, birds that make themselves smaller for the feast.
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
We light the room by fire, by candle & wood, we light the room by reflection, by mirror & polish, we light the room by prayer & drawing open the curtains. We light the room by huddle & condense, by bringing together the bright & silver, by widening our eyes. The light is always dim.
& also with song & a joyful heart & painting everything white & getting down on our knees & needing less & going to sleep when we’re told & when it should be time for sleep.
On, off. On, off. These are words we don’t yet know.
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
a window ledge: two shells curl a sound inside them; a candle lit, a candle added. Fever keeps us warm if the sheets are thin.
You can speak a flame but not see light, see say the words: how they burn going down,
how you char a man. Burning all along the back he is looking for a place to lie down will you smooth the sheets.
We roll the covers; sleep is intimate where light’s never let in. The dark silvers the glass to make a mirror of the window. A window ledge: candle lit & the shine returned; a candle added & look the dark lets us make day appear.
If the cup is good the light shines through. Lips-lifted the water wavers; rounds away from the shore of your breath; your mouth a moon to pull the tide.
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
low pines, green that grows to the ground
a wall where to pin her ribbon
even her walk: see she’s cornered
heavy grow the satin shoes
silvered buckles, their shivering tongues
& the leaves chime in kind
echo that greens the ground
& the pine walls, pins that pull the ribbon from her black hair
& also the dark ribbons of her hair from her hair
the soft moss & the moss falling from the trees
the soft step, ankle bend,
gradient before the break
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
Beneath the house, the cellar to store the root beneath the plant. The root is a bone & the bottom of a bone. Lying down, my hand is to my face. Be good.
For each man there is a word. Yours is silent: a hand on each arm. The string is struck, arches—undone, the moon bends, arc a spine of stars.
Chord & chorus: song's spine. The chorus is silent, the words are words you only think, the words are words
you’re changing your mind
The bone is a moon & inside me. The moon is new: it does not show.
A favor, for one of us
I am put face down O kindly.
**
return to sawbuck 3.4
**
Lisa Ciccarello's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Glitterpony, elimae, Otoliths, Anti- & Saltgrass, as well as a number of other journals. She has two chapbooks: At night: (Scantily Clad Press) & At night, the dead: (Blood Pudding Press). She received her MFA from the University of Arizona where she was a poetry editor at the Sonora Review; she now lives in Portland, OR & is currently the assistant editor for Scantily Clad Press. She'll share what she can with you if you visit her at http://punchinglittlebirdsintheface.blogspot.com/.
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
Color: the way we know time passes. The light is gold & becomes another color later. The light is a garden when it breaks the window. We are stilled. I am cutting my hands on what now.
Magic of the cut & fold. In the spell, the words need us to be as the dead; swaddled in the spoken sound it is hard to make the motion of breathing. But O our voices shake in our paused throats. By breath the blades turn.
Knot in the sheet & in the hair drawn up into the fist like a rope. Like one of us is climbing. All fist-full & bent to the ankle. All the shift in what you saw before you: but the rope & what you would do. Bury is a safety.
I lick the teeth planted in the soil of yr mouth. The tongue burns. What you said you said it out loud & the look was like moving backwards. The teeth planted in the soil of yr skin.
The light you have drawn me is gold. It illuminates nothing. Hair slips from behind the ear. This too is only about time.
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
He speaks the story, same story even when the house is empty. We place the crumbs on the windowsill. We think we will see them when we walk by the glass. It is such a long walk. We stay inside. We think we see them.
The warble is the scrape of feather on bark: birds worm their way into the bushes, birds that make themselves smaller for the feast.
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
We light the room by fire, by candle & wood, we light the room by reflection, by mirror & polish, we light the room by prayer & drawing open the curtains. We light the room by huddle & condense, by bringing together the bright & silver, by widening our eyes. The light is always dim.
& also with song & a joyful heart & painting everything white & getting down on our knees & needing less & going to sleep when we’re told & when it should be time for sleep.
On, off. On, off. These are words we don’t yet know.
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
a window ledge: two shells curl a sound inside them; a candle lit, a candle added. Fever keeps us warm if the sheets are thin.
You can speak a flame but not see light, see say the words: how they burn going down,
how you char a man. Burning all along the back he is looking for a place to lie down will you smooth the sheets.
We roll the covers; sleep is intimate where light’s never let in. The dark silvers the glass to make a mirror of the window. A window ledge: candle lit & the shine returned; a candle added & look the dark lets us make day appear.
If the cup is good the light shines through. Lips-lifted the water wavers; rounds away from the shore of your breath; your mouth a moon to pull the tide.
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
low pines, green that grows to the ground
a wall where to pin her ribbon
even her walk: see she’s cornered
heavy grow the satin shoes
silvered buckles, their shivering tongues
& the leaves chime in kind
echo that greens the ground
& the pine walls, pins that pull the ribbon from her black hair
& also the dark ribbons of her hair from her hair
the soft moss & the moss falling from the trees
the soft step, ankle bend,
gradient before the break
**
At night, the perfect inside is outside:
Beneath the house, the cellar to store the root beneath the plant. The root is a bone & the bottom of a bone. Lying down, my hand is to my face. Be good.
For each man there is a word. Yours is silent: a hand on each arm. The string is struck, arches—undone, the moon bends, arc a spine of stars.
Chord & chorus: song's spine. The chorus is silent, the words are words you only think, the words are words
you’re changing your mind
The bone is a moon & inside me. The moon is new: it does not show.
A favor, for one of us
I am put face down O kindly.
**
return to sawbuck 3.4
**
Lisa Ciccarello's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Glitterpony, elimae, Otoliths, Anti- & Saltgrass, as well as a number of other journals. She has two chapbooks: At night: (Scantily Clad Press) & At night, the dead: (Blood Pudding Press). She received her MFA from the University of Arizona where she was a poetry editor at the Sonora Review; she now lives in Portland, OR & is currently the assistant editor for Scantily Clad Press. She'll share what she can with you if you visit her at http://punchinglittlebirdsintheface.blogspot.com/.
Labels: 3.4, lisa ciccarello, winter 2009/2010
