Poetry

Late Night Body Dump in July

Mary Katherine Meadows

My 19^th summer I sat on the top step, rotting wood, outside his trailer; the country sun causing my skin to turn pink like the under-cooked hamburgers we threw out the door.  I watched as his pet goat struggled against the tightening rope fixed around her neck.  I went over the list of things he needed for work:  keys, pre-paid cell phone, Hungry Man chicken dinner, can of coke.  The goat, with her white matted fur sough the shade beneath the front of the rusted minivan.  Late, he made the motor purr.  I turned o go back inside the air conditioning when I heard the crunch.  We drug her corpse beneath the Dogwood, laying her on a bed of soft white petals, covering her with an old faded sheet.  That night when he got home he folded the goat into an extra large trash bag before packing her in the back seat of my car.  He took the back roads slow, a funeral procession on the way to the land bridge.  Headlights intensified the sound of the car’s engine rumbling, the crickets chirping.  We looked over the railing down the slope to the dry creek bed below.  He tossed her over, a skydiver whose parachute wouldn’t open.  I remember the image, like a movie still, of her falling, helpless, like my own lifeless body, carelessly thrown into the night.

Packed Away

Mary Katherine Meadows

When we were engaged

fidelity was the lyrical whisper

slid through mail slots,

found just inside the threshold

of a promise.

It tucked itself between groceries;

boiled in the soft heat of dinner.

It was found in the twisted branches

of corkscrews, the radiance of a Celtic rose

crushed between the folds of aluminum.

Logic eluded my reach;

danced among the emerald glow of fireflies

slipped between the branches of willow

framed by narrow steel.

You, the man I gave sleep for,

unclipped keys, crossed brick sidewalks

to uncurl life, made puzzles of the habitation of fedoras.

I wanted your abstractions

to tell me something I didn’t know about love,

but you squandered the hum of emergency,

unbound contact of the world.

I purified the wind with your hand wash only

and saved the rest as if they would keep you alive.

It’s no longer a surprise I found monogamy

driving outside the city limits,

vacating reaction, hydroplaning,

leaving May as nothing more

than the fifth month.  

Fumigating the Remains of a Year with Lilacs

Mary Katherine Meadows

I pick petals from stems 

and scatter them across the linoleum floor

leaving a trail through the dilapidated house

that never gave more than an abrasive moan.

It was the year of stretch marks and epidurals,

umbilical cords that wrapped around the pulse

and required IVs and sun beds.

It was the year of hospitals;

their sterile halls as familiar to me as my son’s cry

or the feel of his mouth sucking milk from my breast,

the warm liquid running down my flesh in the middle of the night,

his quieted whimpers rocking me back to sleep.

It was the year of imprisonment.

The black barrel of a gun shoved in the mouth

of a man who would never know the meaning of father

as I bent double with cramps.

It was the year of escape;

clothes piled in the car in moments

of un-observance, the crib left behind.

We shared a bed in the back room of my grandma’s

and I trained myself to sleep still,

my son still seconds from my womb.

It was the year of bleeding

and I had managed to cauterize the wounds.

I soak the lilac petals in kerosene,

strike a match,

and watch as the neglected house

and the year burn. 

Without Warning it Comes

Mary Katherine Meadows

What is it about the snow? I am beginning to wonder if it is personal.

It comes in the night while I sleep, silent and soft, pillowing my dreams.

It falls easy at first, slow, misleading, just enough to dust my surroundings,

make my perception blurry. Then, without warning, density thickens,

speed quickens, a furious downpour of freezing precipitation.

It blankets the ground, packs us in tight, and buries the warning signs.

When I awaken to the cushion of deception I am filled with peacefulness,

unaware of what the snow has brought. I thrust myself upon it,

embrace the dampness, mold myself into it, but when I return you are gone

and it leaves angry red welts on the skin that sting long after the snow has melted.

Our Garden of Gold in the Disquiet of Winter

Mary Katherine Meadows

My melancholy settles beneath the shade

of the willow tree in the disquiet of weeping

over my womb cold as winter,

and each perfectly designed finite snowflake

that falls around me but will not grow within.

Sorrow produces ghosts of dreams I once had,

dreams of a garden filled with fine golden letters,

each weaved on waves of our poetry.

The storm clouds of our pasts are dark

and heavy with the burden of rain,

the diary of us becomes lachrymose

and I can feel you slipping,

the city building between us that will

make us strangers once again,

the harder I fight the deeper

the current of strangers pulls me beneath,

drowning me, holding me captive

as I watch it carry you away.

The Butterfly Collector

Mary Katherine Meadows

On the mantel is a case filled with dried butterfly wings,

pinned on black velvet, behind a sheet of glass.

Vibrant colors and intricate patterns petrified in death.

Each was selected with care because they fluttered

soft against the breeze, perched radiant on silk petals,

danced to entice. You displayed them with pride,

trophies of your varied love affairs.

What do their rigid bodies do for you now?

I dust around them, careful not to make eye contact –

their stilled breath warns me of my fate, but I already know;

you’ll collect me like the Monarch swept in a net,

paralyzed by terror in the last fleeting moments of life.

Blood and Rust

Mary Katherine Meadows

I want to mold my body with the concrete,

fuse my flesh with the cement particles

until we become one. I want to bathe

under this sky of steel, soak in the light-iron

rays until my touch seers the soles of your feet.

I want to hang myself out to dry on the fire-escape

over-looking your dumpster of one-night-stands

while you discover new ways to manipulate the fine print.

I want to awaken to electric chirping of birds carried home

on the backs of passersby as you navigate the interstate

of bedrooms; your GPS home set to my thighs.

I want to lace my coffee with car horns, 3 a.m. excuses,

already scented fingers. I want to zone us; divide our body

into districts of guidelines; show you that labels are simply names

and cheating is cheating; show you that you are creating potholes

with your lies, with your affairs, and there are not enough funds

to repair the fractured pavement. I want you to see that our balcony

is no longer an extension of our union, but an escape from a lease

signed in blood and rust. 

Dust and Lead

Mary Katherine Meadows

I can feel silence kiss caverns of memories;

            hear the cascade of courters coming to call,

                        their breaths crisp with the serenity of naïve promises;

                                    taste the sweet flitter on my tongue of sun-dried laughter.

It’s all ash now; swept up in a funnel of flames;

            you from the embers scorching my skin.

What-could-have-been sits dust in the urn on my mantel

            with porcelain dolls in yellowing lace gowns

                        and forgotten wedding bands.

Cobwebs crochet afghans of the uterus;

            I mop the floor with embryonic fluid

                        while you arm an brigaid of mistresses.

China meets hardwood, and then dustpan

            before I feel my way to the stained comforter;

                        before I lie on my back as you fill me with lead.

Memories of You

Mary Katherine Meadows

I miss you less than I thought I would.

I miss you more than I think I do.

I want you less than I thought I did.

And I love you more than I ever knew.