for the woman painter, because things grow
   

vanessa, vanessa, with the name you hate--
don't hate that country too much.
he runs to mexico because there you can't name him.
they don't need water in mexico.
they do.
 
and then there's grapes. and then there's wine. everything
gets born from something else. the man
you thought you painted really lives-- but he can give
no more light or love than the toe of the moon
peeking out behind a thousand harem clouds.
sin hielo sin hielo, nothing shames him. in mexico
there's too much ice.
 
you can't paint him. there's too much you know.
you are his best friend because you don't know him at all.
you are his most precious lover because you don't sleep with him
at all.
sin hielo sin hielo, in mexico
there's too much sin.
 
you can't own him but you can
crush his aging grapes in the name of wine.
vanessa, vanessa, with the name you hate
and hair like a pool of spilled cranberry juice
vanessa, sin hielo, in mexico he loves you especially
after too much wine. and you say to yourself
 
you don't need him too much in mexico. you
do.

Copyright (c) Carolyn Creedon 1992. Included by permission of the author.

 
dear god i
 
think you will know of triumvirates
household gods, sometimes holy--
jesus the nazarene is a Carpenter and my lover is a blind Painter.
by day my Painter paints brown verses
on woodstretched aching canvas.
by day he paints the things he would see from the eye of a storm or a needle
if he could see.
by day he paints the things faltering shutdown angels, the ones on heaven
probation, would say
if they could say.
by night his black lips brush my brown cup on sheets whiter than mary.
but the colors my blind painter paints do not matter.
there is a woman always at the edge of his canvas
a silhouette with only the important things,
breasts and a womb. she is the only important thing
but she is a shadow. she could be the mouth of a cave
or a scalloped shell or a brown seahorse. so
if i lie down with jesus the nazerene during the day
while he kneels by my butcher table grunting, grieving for me, giving up
blood and sperm, stretching me, if i lay my body down and splay my feet
and grasp a butter knife for want of his hand
and bleed face staring into the red tiles of my kitchen
my church of the chablis glasses and paring knives and violent
red tomatoes, if i lie down with him during the day, this Carpenter, this shadow
when he leaves he will say, "don't worry, I'll build you
Another"
and if i lie down with my brown aging Painter only at night
let him lay on me like he's smoothing a brown piece of paper
we three will have made a beautiful wooden seahorse and painted it brown and
white
the colors of mary
who drinks the brown ocean's blood and sperm.

Copyright (c) Carolyn Creedon 1992. Included by permission of the author.

bonepsalm
 
you took a lullaby of mine and changed the rhyme. why is it now
a mansong?
I sing it with my sons at the kitchen table
dirty dishes still waiting to be dropped
 
your sons. three tentacles thrust out from the moon?
they have galloped into orbit and still they have my rhythms
 
what have you done with my painted toenails?
I've ground them cinnamon. my wife sprinkles them
on my morning eggs. they coat my moustache smooth and grim
 
you have taken up my skull offerings with gratitude. crushed
aspirin. what shall I have for my pain?
they have found their way into my cufflinks, my antisocial ivory heart
that sinks and sings sure of a woman. your crunchy bones have been
the gravel road back to her
 
the ropes of my veins, why do you need them?
you will survive on bloodless arteries. your rummy juice runs
back to me
and the veins of you thread me a wife-shirt, bluestriped and
not tired of me--
ironed delicately by hands who spank and kiss my sons; mother misery
 
But how can you use the flesh of my face?
the softest parts, all the lips of you, I throw in the washer--one load
to stain the other clothing. then my wife puts on a pink shirt and
I am sorry
 
my eyes, my eyes cupped in a cradle of blood and flesh. Even these?
we have put them in the junk box. they are my sons' marbles,
evil green orbs,
and also magic balls that disappear under cups. they are needed,
to heal, and I will always know these smooth orbs, these rolling bowls
of days they take with them
 
why am I in your notebook of sins? why am I written into your sons?
but christ was a page torn out of our notebook. why can't you?
 
but christ liked sucking our blood and I love only
suckling you. what of me?
a lovely broken experiment. I wrap your speckled skin around me. I piss
your warm brown blood where my wife cannot see. I pick my teeth
with your splinters since I am back home. my wife alone bends over
the dishwasher and stacks the family bones away. she stands over
the wicker basket at night to fold and smooth the freshwashed flesh
of my sons
 
my heart, my corded wicked neon heart. what of it?
I'm sorry, I couldn't need it

Copyright (c) Carolyn Creedon 1993. Included by permission of the author.