TWO POEMS IN RESPONSE TO ELIZABETH TREADWELL’S POEM, PASSERINE
Gathering That Feels Like Stalking
Privateers own the water
all around
This is fairy sails vs pirate ship
Our daughters' crafts christened
in radical love
It is fantasy to think
they can overtake them
& yet they do
& girls everywhere glinted all day
like swords
bright in victories
piecemeal work
scraps stitched likes maps
one by one
It’s so hard to get away from beauty
The invisible dresses
They are not lilies
and their fragrance is not their emission.
A projection heavy as ingots.
Girls both vincible and convincible &
who sold it to them as a shield?
You ask me for my central argument.
You want me to stop this
stitching & gathering that feels like stalking.
You say
when you say this
I say that, and when you say that, I say this
Yes. Yes to all of it.
It’s not simple. I won’t make it simple for you
I won’t build you the crux to nail us to
If I caught one, brushed a tendril
I’d let go
let her be
awash in personal weather
sunbeams, deep shade & storms---
A system that knows it’s free
& open
To and come back to
very lovely folded petal by petal words for her that she repeats
if the mirror absorbs a little pulled through the thicket or soft folds
shine on fur its own color as if eyes have no borders
we speak & & are touching pardon the hands rind and pith
Privateers own the water
all around
This is fairy sails vs pirate ship
Our daughters' crafts christened
in radical love
It is fantasy to think
they can overtake them
& yet they do
& girls everywhere glinted all day
like swords
bright in victories
piecemeal work
scraps stitched likes maps
one by one
It’s so hard to get away from beauty
The invisible dresses
They are not lilies
and their fragrance is not their emission.
A projection heavy as ingots.
Girls both vincible and convincible &
who sold it to them as a shield?
You ask me for my central argument.
You want me to stop this
stitching & gathering that feels like stalking.
You say
when you say this
I say that, and when you say that, I say this
Yes. Yes to all of it.
It’s not simple. I won’t make it simple for you
I won’t build you the crux to nail us to
If I caught one, brushed a tendril
I’d let go
let her be
awash in personal weather
sunbeams, deep shade & storms---
A system that knows it’s free
& open
To and come back to
very lovely folded petal by petal words for her that she repeats
if the mirror absorbs a little pulled through the thicket or soft folds
shine on fur its own color as if eyes have no borders
we speak & & are touching pardon the hands rind and pith