CARRIE WATER
A PORTRAIT
My husband writes of a legacy
he has overflushed.
And in the dreamy night's
bubbling up
of images,
a pot of sauce on the
stove simmering lightly,
he muses
the everbound saddnesses
which never let him go.
But from the place
where the night slumped
to its slumbering shine,
a brilliant gloss
on the deepest darks,
he sings like a king to
a summer moon
just before
a heavy thunderstorm.
And what matter,
what matter if all
life's doings are chance
and chatter.
He, in the sense of
a velvet knowledge
lies paralyzed,
continues in prayer,
unruthlessly,
undaunted,
and enveloped
by an evening mist.
CarrieWater
Winter 1998
POEMS
COME FROM
the sense of being
on this side of the river
with everyone else
on the other
And a tree has fallen
by the looks of things some
time ago, probably
without anyone
there to hear the
noise it made but
still it might be
useful as a bridge
across, if only you
could drag it into place
without its crumbling, the termites,
you notice, have been there first.
And so instead you
wave across the water to
whomever will notice
and point up at the buttery
moon just risen and
hope against hope
they will be able to see
it before the clouds obscure it
once more.
As a consequence of the river,
the rotten tree, and the moon,
I find myself writing about hands I
almost touched
hands I dreamt of kissing
and trying to remember what exactly
it was that triggered that desire,
trying to remember what
moisture, what light, kept it
growing, persistent as an ivy,
fastening its tiny iron feet to certain
mind structures so that when I finally
mustered up the resolve to tear it
all down, small bits of
it remained leaving me with an
impression of the plant's shape.
How can I then
write a poem for you?
I loved the English language
when I was a little girl,
trusted it to say all that needed saying.
Forgive me then
if the poems I write
are about lapses in reasoning,
indecision, and unlit candles.
For this poet,
the poem is not the measure
of her understanding
It's a measure of all she loves but
cannot grasp, what she cherishes
but cannot realize, of what will
go on unacknowledged
unless she nods
to it with words.
CarrieWater
Summer 98
RETURN
The girl is striding
down the street purposefully
not that she has anywhere
to go but it has begun to get
dark and young women walking down
streets after dark had been
advised to walk quickly, to assume
an air of someone on her
way to meet someone, preferably someone
big, someone strong. And since this street
happens to be in a mid-size city where
rape, murder and other undesirables
have been known to surface, she
quickens her pace, lifts her gaze
to the horizon.
She is being followed,
she notices, by
the newly risen moon.
The sky is that rich, textured
early-evening blue
and the moon is bobbing along
in it like an apple in cider,
peering between the buildings
at her, a milky eye.
There's a gas station across
the street, well lit, manned
by some less than honorable-looking
-is it because of the grease
stains up their forearms?
-men. Though they're uniformed,
she finds their presence no
particular comfort, as she makes
her way down the opposite side of
the street in this mid-size city just
after sundown.
On her side of the street,
she approaches what used to be a
church. There are walls, but
only three--the masonry in rubble,
the stained glass long gone,
but the shape of the window,
a pointed arch, remains.
But oh! The moon! --Has followed her right
into the frame of the pointed arch.
She stops, despite
her feigned rush
to meet that 6' 5" weightlifter
friend of hers, in spite of
the darkness welling up in
a city without promises.
She stops and looks.
She wants to remember she doesn't know
why but she wants to remember this. . .
Carrie Water
Summer 1998
PRECIOUS
Glass shot out from the
center, once beautiful
and fragments now lodge
against bones like hard
clear jewels, the rivulets
of crimson flowing over them,
quartz rapids.
Squeezing lemon into the slashed
mouths of skin, the snapping
scrape of glass and bone accompanies
every motion: reclining
into a chair, lifting
a cigarette to the lips.
At the sink
doing dishes he hears that
scrape like majestic music.
They are jewels
he keeps covetously
in flesh pockets.
There are places his softness
gathers into tight
hard buds. He glares at
the sun for having invaded yet
another day; the insolent eye of heaven
steadily returns the gaze. He
sneezes, annoyed
by the smell, the smell of
his solitary
sex, the tenor of his
sweat in yet another
stale morning.
CarrieWater
Fall 1996
POST-OP
I gotta get this
thing out, I said
to the girl
in my bed
and thrust into
myself behind
the testicles,
pulled out
some silvery
red organ,
a sort of small fish,
a section of liver
or heart.
Here, I said
to her, handing
it over.
But don't
you think-
she said as
I handed her
another
piece like
a torn sponge,
an undersea brain,
--you should ask
someone
to help,
a professional?
I never trusted
Doctors.
--But this stuff
these innards,
your organs,
these pieces,
you might--
need them
someday.
Girls are so
squeamish.
I was getting it.
I'd almost got it.
CarrieWater
1998