Saturday, December 24, 2011

UP-TO-DATE (OR ANCIENT) GOTHIC


UP-TO-DATE (OR ANCIENT) GOTHIC


1.  THE SECRET DAUGHTER


Please, I was born uptown; but it's winter and
this hillside tarpaper shack isn't
my home, though here I roast pork three times daily for my
make-believe father

who drools for hams he's strung up like convicts or
children, lost, who only swing about
waiting for bidders.  Fair weather watched my kidnapping
when I was driven

off by this farmer who lives to slaughter his
hogs, to gorge on bacon, chops, entire
Decembers-- no cereals for growing girls, and the
calendar stalls like

his filthy silver.  His fingers smear me as
blue as hams that shudder under his
tainted knives.  He tends to me.  Mother in stores, reclaim
me, or I'm rendered.



2.  THE BRILLIANT DAUGHTER


Sisters, we thrive in private on sherry and
Freud and the Brontës.  Circling chairs in
a living room under ficus branches (twisted in
gestures we know from

agreeable boyfriends who possess no
notions) we study each bouquet while
love-birds shriek.  Our grove's so full we kill proposals to
the green bottle's dregs.

In secret we answer Freud's question.  Dora,
you scammed him, we'll toast you and also
Emily Brontë, who stashed the key to her diary in
her corset and spied

amongst hedges.  Our thirsty boyfriends are locked-
out, perplexed.  As blossoms shut they ex-
change stories, uneasily spy on our hide-out while
our faces redden

in elegant glasses; we sink as in bath-
water, frankly naked and strengthened.
Ficus shakes.  Freud hasn't a chance, nor boyfriends knocking
voyeurs' death-wishes.




3.  THE CAREFUL DAUGHTER


If this household didn't need a look-out, if
stray creatures didn't skulk under our
porch and whine, I'd be free inside my room.  And the guy
downstairs plays hide-and-

seek like it's solitaire; but it's summer and
satellites cruise skies as purple as
bruises.  Yes, I walk hecticly, but who'll protect him,
stumbling to package

stores or napping in shrubbery?  I tuck him
in, and he can't pronounce "thanks."  Outside
traffic's moving slowly tonight, and it's all my fault.
Strays are hungry, while

owls complain, like women who yearn for creatures
to foster.  Father, as when your head-
ache bore me, his hangover loves me.  In cities and skies
nothing else looks out.


Jack Hayes
© 2010

This poem originally appeared in Timbuktu

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