Five Poems

by Mercedes Lawry

She: A Retrospective

She was spoiled grandeur

She was allowed

She was a page in an ancient book, brittle, spider-tracked

She was in tune with birds of all sorts

She was broken electric

She came to you in a dream that was actually a lie

She made strange soft sounds, like halted breaths

She was the lesson of trees, eternal

She caught blue and turned it to shadow

She was quick

She believed in contradiction and original sin

As so-and-so said

And there we have our expertise,

experience and false gods,

no blushing allowed.

Must you have a nose

to be on the nose?

Oh, wisdom, you’re a furtive one

and such disguises!

Let us take a string of words,

weigh them, knock off the corners,

dip them in tepid water, string them

across the mantel, let us

listen, dissect, interpret, and possibly

believe.

Consciousness in Dim Light

Invade the space of the mind,

home to tinkers and bards

where word-threads loop and tangle,

fissure the sky-trails

scuttling through seasons.

Only connect the vision and periphery.

Let the likely desires of thought

lie down with the faint ideas.

Here, tunnels and hummocks

verges and dolmens, such swift

transport through fractured synapse.

Come in and make merry

in the slippery abandon, a feast

of such nimiety, rules bent     

science twirled and scorned

into what might take us outside

the ruins of our minds,

faint and disappearing

like frescoes

on a pale, moldering wall.

At What Point

bone truths

how we know the risk

as the measure of floods

boundless

the sodden lumber

of the lost

numerical narratives form           

crisis

from the Greek – decision

decisive point

how many in the zone

of tolerance, until the moon

fractures, the valleys collapse?

marrow clues, no

detectives at the gates

water in excess

water in absentia

earth’s puzzle

with no breathing space

loveless

A Summary of Grief

effortless, the blue be-gone sky

the ache of it

empty, and whether or not

I am saddened or lost

eventual darkness slips in

like slow paint

and I lie down in the bed

pull the blanket up

inhaling

the marrow of loss

BIO: Mercedes Lawry’s most recent book is Vestiges from Kelsay Books. She’s published three chapbooks and poems in journals such as Nimrod and Alaska Quarterly Review. Her book Small Measures is forthcoming from ELJ Editions, Ltd. in 2024. She’s also published short fiction and stories and poems for children. @mercwrites