Endings That We Don't Admit
We don't hold baby showers for death.
Your eyes, on the brink of the close, ask why --
since its visage, its shadow follows us all.
Each kiss goodnight a tenuous peck from hot-wired birds --
longing for fate to move south.
Water in a vase goes black.
I dump its sewer in the porcelain sink,
swear at stains of bile green.
Add flowers to the grocery list.
Someone hammers at the door to sell you caskets,
discounts on a funeral plan.
We laugh like tea cups on the edge.
But humor's bacchic hieroglyph
is more than I can bear to read.
The omen of a thunderclap in grit gray cloud.
My skin, allergic to the storm -- itching to
return the wool, settle into silken lies.
Leaves paste themselves in asphalt cracks.
The wind of it all -- fierce with a razor snow --
rattles a chandelier. I will go shopping for lights.
After I mop the checkered tile
as if I can change the turn of the road.
© 2002 Janet I. Buck
Janet Buck is a three-time Pushcart Nominee and the author of four collections of poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Three Candles, PoetryBay, Red River Review, Runes, Stirring, The Concrete Wolf, Branches, Poet's Cut, The Carriage House Review,
Facets, Sand to Glass, The American Muse, and hundreds of journals world-wide. In 2002, Buck's poetry is scheduled to appear in
Artemis, The Montserrat Review, Recursive Angel, Apples & Oranges, Pig Iron Malt, Gertrude, The Pedestal Magazine, Southern
Ocean Review, and The Pittsburgh Quarterly. Recent awards include Sol Magazine's 2001 Poem of the Year, The 2001 Kota Press
Anthology Prize, and The Thunder Rain Award. Janet's newest e-book Ash Tattoos, a collection of poetry on the terrorist attacks and the aftermath of war, is now available from The ZeBook Company.