Poetry |

“Bitter Greens,” “Matisse in the National Gallery,” “It Is What It Is” & “Field Notes”

Bitter Greens

 

 

I know the bitter ones. The consonants that break

hard against the ear. Kale. Radicchio. Chard.

I know the dark billow of leaves, the wild ripple

above a cinch of twist-tied ankle stems,

the bulging veins in celadon or scarlet splitting

each one up the middle. I know the curly edges.

If they could speak, they’d sound exactly like

those cranky ladies slowly poisoning themselves

on front porches up and down Brenwall Avenue

in 1964. Hair sprayed in frozen waves or held in check

by nylon nets, rings of lipstick on the tan paper

of spent cigarettes scattered in an ashtray’s upturned palm.

What did it mean, they asked, when the fanciest

house on the block got bought by a mixed-race couple?

We perched on the steps, watched their wagging

chins, their smoke rings. We waited for an opening

to beg for cookies. They almost always rose

from the sag of plastic lawn-chair webbing,

let the squealing screen door slam behind,

returned with chocolate chips or Oreos, those bitter,

house-coated women. We took their sweets and scrammed,

ran toward the thin patch of trees we called the woods,

toward the creek, the secret fort, the puddled

mosquito-bog of dead-man’s lake. Ran

toward a future that didn’t belong to them, we thought.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Matisse in the National Gallery

 

 

The artist’s wife leans on the turquoise

arm of a slat-backed chair. Her eyes swim —

two black fish in the glass bowl of her face.

The shoulders and sleeves of her blue coat

lose themselves to the background’s indigo

swirls. From across the room, four goldfish

watch from a clear cylinder, their orange

reflections trapped on the water’s surface.

They swim among rough approximations

of philodendron, nasturtium, elephant ears.

Captive within a painted matrix, all circle —

wife, fish, blossom, smudged muddle of

the left hand, the feather nodding in the hat.

In other words, nothing extraordinary —

A woman waits underwater. A fish swims

among houseplants. A girl in a museum sees,

forgets to breathe.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

“It Is What It Is”

 

 

Now the sooty shearwaters pull their day-long ribbon over the sea.

In the middle distance, the black thread of wings presses

along the invisible road of their ancestors, pulls us to the edge

of the water, to the edge of something we are trying to grasp.

There is the order of the world that we understand,

and the order of the world we do not understand.

A full moon always rises as the sun dissolves into the Pacific.

Wild blackberries are sweetest on the tongue of a small child.

There is no life to be had that doesn’t include a knife stuck in the chest.

Now the hidden clock of our hungers folds its hands.

Feathers multiply on the shore. Squid shelter

among ocean ledges. A heart like the new moon — pitiless, unlit.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Field Notes

                        after Jericho Brown

 

 

In the billowed meadow of the night

A bobcat trots unseen between the sage and lupine.

 

            The soul hunts at night, smelling of sage and lupine.

            I check the box. I am not a robot.

 

Outside the box — stories and dirt. Robotic

Surgery of the soul. I light the candles.

 

            In this anatomical theatre, I candle

            the egg, but the egg keeps its mysteries.

 

Who I am will remain a mystery.

I carry the entire throng of me

 

            Into each day. Is it wrong of me

            To say I am a six-fingered star,

 

A scalpel, a germ, a silent movie star,

A bobcat sleeping in the meadow of the night?

Contributor
Veronica Kornberg

Veronica Kornberg (she/her) lives in Northern California. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Indiana Review, New Ohio Review, RHINO Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, Salamander, Menacing Hedge, The Shore, Spillway, and Tar River Poetry.

Posted in Poetry

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