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A Wartime Sestina

 

London broke the news of the war

On the first tea of the stifling holiday.

The children came in for lemon cake and Flora

Entered the kitchen to find her aunt

Clutching a photograph of troops on a train

Bearing them toward an unknown country.

 

She said Germans might bomb the country

And Churchill had just declared war;

The battle would not stall for the holiday.

Her brother, in a private's suit, told Flora

That he would soon be boarding a train

Like the one that carried her to aunt.

 

...

 

When the girl asked if taking a holiday

Meant a lemon cake might await Flora,

Maude jerked her face away from the train.

The icy stare cast by her aunt

Made the girl turn her eyes to the country

That would soon be ravaged by war.

 

A war of killing and bombed trains.

But Flora only wept for the lost holiday

Trapped in Aunt Maude's cake-less country.

 

On Mornings

 

Waking up, I rub wrinkles of skin,

circles of creases

below my eyes - leftovers from last night's meal

scraped off the plate with fingernails

cracked from exhaustion.  And sugar,

Sugar, my hands, they yawn.

 

Good morning.  First I swallow a yawn,

then coffee, staining the skin

between my lips and cheeks, a sugar

swamp mixed in the dregs at the bottom, creases

my mouth in delight.  I smile- my teeth, fingernails

(weak but white) and I tear apart this lovely meal.

 

And while I digest my meal

(bones crunch, spit condenses, organs yawn),

I move to the mirror and clean my fingernails

and scrub my squalid skin.

I plaster my eyes with ash and my creases

with white, white, white sugar.

 

...

 

will ignite the creases of my skin.

Will yawn and share a meal.

Will find soft little secrets in my fingernails. Will  

     pass the sugar

 

 

sample flights

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