Wednesday, January 16, 2019

JOANNA McCLURE ~







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