PJ Nights

MOURNING HAS ITS SEASON AS ALL THINGS HAVE

Gone those liquified mecurial days,
the lady put her hands into her sleeves
and froze at once --

the fringe of the dreamer's eyelashes
turned into a design on the playing cards
she was holding in her hand.

Figures from the Tarot cards performed
a dance & mime in which she came and came
   - but came no nearer -

In the first antiquity of her Egyptian sleep,
she clasped a roc's egg gingerly
between her legs, her shapely calves

on a saucer until the masked pierrot
laid patience at the kitchen table.
Wisps of condensation snaked out of collars,

curled up under the rim of hats.
Over the soft slumberous weight of the woman,
the wind stood up with a thunderclap

and she could feel herself unfreeze,
become just a drop of herself
on the brim of her sleep.

With her nipple flush on the noon meridian,
the leprechaun surfaced in a cartwheel
of laughter - she left winter behind,

run dry of music like her heart, and knew,
its mourning season had ended, too.



       * constructed from phrases from the novel
       "The Feast of Fools" by John David Morley

Location: Maine Occupation: Physics & astronomy teacher Email: pj_nights@yahoo.com Website: http://www.geocities.com/pj_nights Publications: Animus, Penumbra, Slow Trains (Volume I & II), MiPo Print, Apples and Oranges, The Green Tricycle, Steel Point Quarterly, LotusBlooms Journal, Mind Caviar, and the textbook Language and Prejudice Awards: 1st place Poetry Superhighway 2003 Editor of: MiPo

- December 2003 - Translations of Peace Limbs Sacred Ground Surrealism Du Jour Winter Flowers Mourning has its season as all things have Paint Job, July 2001 sword lily Tetragrammaton