Mad Women Have Delicate Lather
My armor is supposed to sustain and insult,
though I sense a mysterious advantage
in the bottle of my pale skin. It’s not my fault,
I don’t intentionally cheat happiness,
nor do I smash the old frogs that record my life
with their incessant, querulous croaking.
Come accolade the cheapest sort of honor —
I was unfaithful to him in August, or was it September?
I came back to him ten minutes too late,
I came back to him just in the nick of time….
Mother, a brutal cat rolled over my bed —
one volley of giant iron shots can save,
a gentle shake of the head can kill.
But now he is firmly attached to the lower post
with an old spiral…. It’s now over a year
since he & I were together. We never smoked
the bells of autumn the way we had planned.
Hard to say why the episode happened,
it was so crazy to do, a very human deal,
given initially to a strange pensive, a morbid mother.
To the left of the baby is recorded the pain and hurt,
recorded specially for you because your eyes are portable.
If lies are rampant, drain the last good bottle.
Pots you offer for sale mirror sullen spiders —
I and the fish I’ve eaten will share a strange heaven.
I have become an article, alone and grumpy,
printed with bloody kisses. Passion or sacrifice,
is anything ancient enough for this fellow?
When the month of April follows punting,
we don’t track what’s left of our hearts.
My Atlantic school ends after a year, and
in numerous respects, we are satiated by simple bathing
with charity. Sharp or wounded, it doesn’t matter,
only I write to beg the bandit for fat hospitality
with ties near and black, a code of decoration!
We don’t serve special people in my house —
turgid glee is apparent to the eyes. Mention the world
of tomatoes in fat, newsy letters with a flash of humor,
while I guard gyrations and lag behind my duties,
living a scalloped life full of vulgar eating.
Before I die I’ll pour peaches over your offense,
that sweet Jamaica of my eloquence and truth.
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 