Deborah Diemont
Mama, Am I Real?
It’s not dragons you fear
or the woman in the attic
I lately let you see
(abbreviated, cinematic).
It’s not the creek that settles
this old house or the dust
tweeting to catch the sun.
It’s me. Am I secretly a witch?
No, Honey. And yes, you’re real,
I know. Sometimes when small,
we can’t well stir the sediments,
the swing’s high noon
of dandy lions, the moon
made of green cheese (why?)
Then ten-year-olds grow hunched and old.
My mother was tall as the sky.
Synecdoche
With my first love, it was the eyes, a green
I didn’t think I could deserve,
piecing me back from distant parts.
His eyes reflected sky but promised earth,
and stained glass fitted everything between
the floor and roof. The house itself was art.
He gathered scraps—and essences I’d mixed--
my jagged, failed collage, straightened the mess,
and in the dusky light, I heard him draw
a breath. He framed his gaze, and I undressed.
It was the eyes my cool heart saw.
I held the hands that held what can’t be fixed.
I tell you how his eye helped me import
a mirror in the spirit I had craved.
For once, mornings arrived as they were meant.
His unassuming eye’s been mostly spent
on us; it’s what, if cast off, I would save,
the hurt caresses I restore
till you show up. I’m seated near the door,
not knowing how to order, if today
repeated yearnings get me burned.
Along the road to beauty, don’t we learn?
Just as the spurning eye succumbs to chase,
the lips proclaim it insufficient sport.
I didn’t foresee your lips, how they might purse
to teach a foreign word I can’t quite say,
renaming fruit, undoing the best sense
I carried with me like a sacred text
when we arranged to meet at the café.
His eye once broke me down. Your lips are worse.
Epistolary
1990
I starved the weekend that you let me sleep.
I’d left Ann Arbor ready for your bed
and eager to consume your energy.
Toronto, summer-burning, thrift: hard cheese;
cold fruit and water; pale thin beer, no head.
I starved the weekend that you let me sleep.
All day, sweating the city—green, concrete--
I craved curry. I craved heat, rare meat, an end
to me, her, your consuming energy.
Faithless below the skin and to loathe speak
for all the fresh-inked innocence I’d sent,
I starved the weekend that you let me sleep.
Back on the bus, no use: your hands on me,
your mouth, the greedy nib, cheap fountain pen.
I starved the weekend that you let me sleep,
dear reader. I consumed your energy.
__________
Deborah Diemont lives in Syracuse, New York and spends summers in Chiapas, Mexico where she co-teaches a course on environmental restoration that includes reading Mexican poetry. She has two chapbooks of poetry available from Dos Madres Press: Wanderer (2009) and Diverting Angels (2012). Her work has appeared in a variety of print and online magazines, including Nimrod International Journal, The Raintown Review, and Stone Canoe.
Mama, Am I Real?
It’s not dragons you fear
or the woman in the attic
I lately let you see
(abbreviated, cinematic).
It’s not the creek that settles
this old house or the dust
tweeting to catch the sun.
It’s me. Am I secretly a witch?
No, Honey. And yes, you’re real,
I know. Sometimes when small,
we can’t well stir the sediments,
the swing’s high noon
of dandy lions, the moon
made of green cheese (why?)
Then ten-year-olds grow hunched and old.
My mother was tall as the sky.
Synecdoche
With my first love, it was the eyes, a green
I didn’t think I could deserve,
piecing me back from distant parts.
His eyes reflected sky but promised earth,
and stained glass fitted everything between
the floor and roof. The house itself was art.
He gathered scraps—and essences I’d mixed--
my jagged, failed collage, straightened the mess,
and in the dusky light, I heard him draw
a breath. He framed his gaze, and I undressed.
It was the eyes my cool heart saw.
I held the hands that held what can’t be fixed.
I tell you how his eye helped me import
a mirror in the spirit I had craved.
For once, mornings arrived as they were meant.
His unassuming eye’s been mostly spent
on us; it’s what, if cast off, I would save,
the hurt caresses I restore
till you show up. I’m seated near the door,
not knowing how to order, if today
repeated yearnings get me burned.
Along the road to beauty, don’t we learn?
Just as the spurning eye succumbs to chase,
the lips proclaim it insufficient sport.
I didn’t foresee your lips, how they might purse
to teach a foreign word I can’t quite say,
renaming fruit, undoing the best sense
I carried with me like a sacred text
when we arranged to meet at the café.
His eye once broke me down. Your lips are worse.
Epistolary
1990
I starved the weekend that you let me sleep.
I’d left Ann Arbor ready for your bed
and eager to consume your energy.
Toronto, summer-burning, thrift: hard cheese;
cold fruit and water; pale thin beer, no head.
I starved the weekend that you let me sleep.
All day, sweating the city—green, concrete--
I craved curry. I craved heat, rare meat, an end
to me, her, your consuming energy.
Faithless below the skin and to loathe speak
for all the fresh-inked innocence I’d sent,
I starved the weekend that you let me sleep.
Back on the bus, no use: your hands on me,
your mouth, the greedy nib, cheap fountain pen.
I starved the weekend that you let me sleep,
dear reader. I consumed your energy.
__________
Deborah Diemont lives in Syracuse, New York and spends summers in Chiapas, Mexico where she co-teaches a course on environmental restoration that includes reading Mexican poetry. She has two chapbooks of poetry available from Dos Madres Press: Wanderer (2009) and Diverting Angels (2012). Her work has appeared in a variety of print and online magazines, including Nimrod International Journal, The Raintown Review, and Stone Canoe.