Blue-Tick

 In the way the wind often does, in the way

the wind and often, does it not appear

often on a dirt lined hand, does it appear

that a hand, a dirt grind, ground in

like hands, not pauses, but hands

linked in dirt in the way the wind

appears, in that                      way

My right hand on the same side as yours

In the corner opposite me, angle within

an angle. How things don’t touch, and the space

between them hums,             charges.  How the space

takes the form of a hand, leftover

shaking itself of hello, goodbye

right on the same side as you

The quiet tonight. In my hand

moving toward this heart

the wind and often, does it not appear

breath, the hand reminding

buy saltines, touch somebody’s face

Hands are days when I forget the lash of silk

We knew                                            everything

Often on a dirt lined hand, does it appear

what passed between tabletop and drawer

What God is not, fingered in my front pocket

Change. But yes, when you said I was

removed from my own feelings, I went

looking                        my whole life

Braided gate. We put the red mare down

Foot. What appears to put down

What grows toward home? The season

for passage. Time       shuffling 

a stiff deck. Who kept score              I’m

not recalling

Toss the corner over   you      shoulder

The way the wind often I thought

That yearn is not young, but close. Horseshoes

around a ring

like a wooden neck; like cheese

holes for small fingers, for tongues and teeth

The way home hung in the air around

our hands, felt something like hands

like pauses in dirt

*

Punica Granatum

for AG

Roll the fruit in your hands until it’s bruised.

What song did you sing on your way to the Caspian sea?

You were loading pomegranates into the truck.

Folding your boy heart into a paper crane.

It flocks in chambers. Corners.

The boy is outside. The boy

is outside the orchard.

The color of the earth here is the moon

under which you were born. All things scarlet hold truth:

stains the lips, the white shirt, tiny seed.

The boy is inside each tree. Tonight he writes across endless rows.

Sometimes in darkness, your spine dodges

the bullet that never aims at you.

The boy’s heart is inside. He ducks behind the gate (finally)

there his grandmother greets him.

You hold the fruit in your palm and lift it to your lips, biting a tiny hole in the skin.

You had been hoping for a friendly face.

Roll the fruit in your hands but cradle it.

**

Laressa Dickey is a poet, dancer and teacher. Her artistic work has been influenced by the exploration of many forms, including painting, gardening, site-specific performance, contact improvisation, and mosaics. She grew up on her family's tobacco farm in rural Tennessee amidst tall poplars and to this day likes to take to the woods for solace of every kind.

Archived at http://lit.konundrum.com/poetry/dickeyl_poems.php