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Janet I. Buck
Date of Birth: 8/9/55
Location: Medford, OR
Email: JBuck22874@aol.com
Website: http://www.janetbuck.com
Published in: The Horsethief's Journal, pith, The Rose & Thorn, The Annihilation Fountain, Poetry Heaven, The Doomed City, Poetry Magazine.com, Niedergasse, Southern Ocean Review, Stirring V1:E2, Stirring V2:E2 , etc.
Book: Calamity's Quilt, Reefs We Live, and Bookmarks in a Hurricane
Awards: Two Pushcart Nominations & The H.G. Wells Award for Literary Excellence
BIRHTMARKS
Now that you’re old and your body retorts
to stewing seas of Percocet and Demerol
and doctors hesitate to write those scripts --
you need to talk -- but pockmarks
of our heritage do not permit lucidity
in darker closets of our lives.
I have this urge to drop the bomb of candor
in our rumpled lap, let the shrapnel take its course.
To hold you through withdrawal’s shakes
and tell you just how much I drank
and hated all 600 nights
of brand new forced sobriety.
But we are clever in our pain.
Particulars of parentage
rewarded moles and freckled sensitivity
with pancake make-up of denial --
thick and brown and crusted over
matching hued propriety.
Emotion’s vulva rattled some,
but it was always quieted --
“Have another glass of wine --
Pour yourself another beer.”
Sobs were rocking underneath
like rosebuds forming under earth.
Pensive blues of poetry
were complimented from afar.
I made our fate uncomfortable;
I made us itch in pubic mounds.
Cervix silence etched a cave;
its rocks are knocking at our door.