THE POEM ESCHEWS THE SINCEREST STYLE
By Wendy Taylor Carlisle
When the poem comes to say what it knows about the suprasternal notch, it stops.
The pale hairs curling back against the skin are far too private a detail to render.
The poem vowed months ago never to speak of its erotic life again. Today’s suitable
topics do not include the weight of flesh in the palm. The poem shuns also the plane
tree and fig for surely alluring fruit poisons the page where a fir can never whisper
or willow weep again. But what of the moon, the breast-
The poem shrugs and shuffles away from the lake and the ginger daylilies, the pelt of moss on a park bench. It can only surreptitiously admire a hip, an elbow, must forgo the eyes as too close to tears, too skewed to the heartfelt which the poem has to admit it can no longer abide. A reader might imagine the poem looks better with its clothes off but that is another poem altogether and one that concerns itself with sweat, that can only be alluded to here, where the poem attends to its cartoon nature and, dressed like Doris Day, waits for a plane, reapplies mascara and adds to its list of unsuitable topics, which now include the Alps, restaurants with linen table cloths and all of Italy. The poem must also drive away from metaphor, which grows smaller and smaller in its rearview mirror.
Thirty years ago, a poem could lie in bed all day moaning, Heart! Heart! And then
break. Today, the moon-
Copyright © 2005 by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
Nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Cider Press Review.
Wendy Taylor Carlisle divides her time between Eureka Spring, AR and Texarkana Texas. She is the author of two books, Reading Berryman to the Dog (2000) and Discount Fireworks (2008) and two chapbooks, After Happily Ever After and The Storage of Angels. Citations to her work and more about this author my be found at http://www.wendytaylorcarlisle.com/
Alice Shapiro
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