LULU AND JACK by Deborah Woodard, from the book "Plato's Bad Horse"

LULU AND JACK
after G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box


Things are dear on the eve of departure.
You sit in my lap and we watch
the candle you lit, keeping vigil
over the remains of the stale bread.

We left our shadows in the stairwell
like great overcoats, fit for giants.
They were clumsy loiterers,
out of breath by the first landing
where I slid my knife over the banister
because I didn’t want to hurt you—
half-seal in your black dress,
half-hummingbird.

Here, another woman gave me a gift
for you. A twig of mistletoe grey as her eyes.
She was an odd sort of thief,
paying back for the look she stole,
and I was like a river, unable to refuse,
fearing the skipped stone of each glance.

It rode light as a feather in my waistcoat,
but it has a burr’s cling, the smell
of outdoors. We could kiss beneath it,
and wake up in the middle of the woods.




http://www.bearstarpress.com/books/platosbadhorse.htm
http://www.deborahwoodard.com/bio.shtml

writer's block

sweet blue eyes straddles a chair in a coffeeshop bent over an application for the other coffeeshop across the street i can't stop thinking since early this morning is finally overcast enough like me the sky is rhyming with pavement again furtive scribbling but my pen is still still as i watch the young woman tilt her mahogany away from the long blonde tongue of table loosens a cascade of tawny curls striped sherbert shirt lifting lifting like a curtain too early exposing an astonished flank of pure sudden vanilla skin saddles of flesh riding downhill noon in the daylight toward the oasis hidden in her jeans

distinctions

sitting in the new warm world, drinking tea in the wooden womb, watching a trio of booted gazelles, huddled just outside, negotiate their plans for an unlaborious day. the sky is clear and just past pastel, the dusty morning sunlight attempting lemonade. a masked man swathed in charcoal sweater & sweats bombs twelfth avenue the opposite way while the twin of a not sold friend sings in the background, i think, i am singed in the black ground, divorced from home. i look over to the angular woman behind the counter, across the room, to ask the name of the song that's been playing. she points to the old woman wearing a yellow, duck billed cap, collapsed in the blood burgundy easy chair, eyes shut, head tilted back, mouth open as if in awe, her german shepherd, harnessed & leashed for service, dozing lightly on the scuffed floor beside her. the angular woman behind the counter points at them and makes the sleepy steeple sign with her hands, pressed against her cheek and says, "precious." i get up from my table and ask, "is that the name of the song, precious?" no, the angular woman says. the old woman sleeping with her dog, that's precious. the song's called "she's so sweet."



http://www.andistarr.com/Bio_Andi.php