Permission
You left me to re-attach myself
Carefully and only partly to someone else
While you finished your fling
With fast cars, married women, cocaine,
magic, and deception.
Now you begin a new life
With a young strong lady
To whom you give fidelity,
Honesty, and clean living.
Thanks.
Lust
I long to give this body —
Not to science, not to the fire,
I long to be given, whole
For the fish in the sea to nibble away.
I long to be buried, naked,
Under the earth, to be returned to the earth.
I want to be placed high,
On an altar made of sticks, for the birds,
For the birds of prey to feed on,
For the sun to whiten my bones.
I long, long to join myself
Back, back into all that life
From which I came.
I long, long to feed life directly.
A Chinese Painting
The stairs,
Up the mountain,
Are delicately, barely visible.
A chicken looks at
A butterfly looking at . . .
I think of Issa.
Images
Creeley
yields
Images
As satisfying
As pulling
Out potatoes.
—————————————
Joanna McClure
CATCHING LIGHT
Collected poems
North Atlantic Books
2013
