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Janet Buck Dirty Dancing My nose is really half a leg.
Standing out like stranded cars
beside deserted roads.
The Wizard of Odd.
I wanna go home.
To more than merely
driftwood bones
like worry sticks in
engines of an aching soul.
A scarecrow leaning in the wind.
Your eyes that rain with pity’s fire.
Third class tickets to romance.
Without the grace and gossamers
that flutter in the evening shade.
Waxen smiles and passes to the
masquerade and theaters of pain.
Dirty Dancing slapped my face
and hit me hard, right between
the satin thighs that never were.
With jealousy like forest fires
that run across a bed of hay.
I might have skated on a pond.
I might have danced on marble dreams.
And here I sit in prairie grass,
just waiting for the flame.
Charades
This empty page is feeling
like a broken box or
mattress springs that make
an awful noise at night.
The secrecy is leprosy.
Worms in lieu of butterflies.
Missing yet another wing like
siding from the barn of dreams.
Another round of knives and pain.
Helicopters stirring up
the quiet air. Double-parked
for tragedy and looking
for a china cup to hold
the streams of tears.
D.C. al and not so Fine.
Planks of fear that bounce
me all around the room.
A drowning beetle on its back.
Beds of coals to look around
and see the veins of scars.
Musty curtains always drawn.
Pillows on the prison bed like
shepherds for a flock of sheep.
And when I wake from surgery
I’ll roll my stump across the page
like soggy butts of cigarettes.
Spin a smile in spiderwebs
and play another of round of life.
It’s really just Charades.
Olive Pits
It started with the shock, I’m sure.
Shrunken limbs like hangers bent
and scattered on a closet floor.
Nurses. Needles. Clotted dreams.
Incubators raining tears and
mounds of bills that must have swelled
with yeast of wishing fate
could spin around and
clap its hands again.
The booties from a baby shower
I’m sure you pinned like summer kites
to body casts and
other anchors of the truth
that took you by surprise.
Puppy ears of skating rinks
and ballerinas on a stage
without the knees to pirouette.
Broken dreams like grocery carts
with missing wheels you must have
tried to push away.
And yet your picture tells me otherwise.
A scarlet smile with lips like grapes.
You must have kissed me many times
before you died, because it fits like
underwear in dressers of my soul.
When I fall, I feel your shoulders
circle me like rubberbands that
take the pain and hold it down.
And every day I see the pit of love
you left in olives of my father’s eyes.
The Doll House
Barbie Dolls with perfect thighs
like roses in a butter mold.
The pantyhose of fantasy
without a single run.
Dressing tables wearing legs
she knew she couldn't have.
Mirrors in the corridors
like sonnets in the heart of days
without a proper rhyme.
Posters on the bed of nights
that always matched and
lyric rugs that never slipped.
The scent of faith she borrowed
from her mother's room
behind the backs of wondering
just what it was to dance the dance
with real knees that didn't creak.
Those eyes. Those eyes.
Those awful eyes.
Lemon pepper in the air.
The allergy of being odd that
made her sneeze and face the wall.
Rearrange the furniture
to save a space for pairs
of pumps she'd only wear
in arrant castles of her dreams.
The rocky hail of pity's clouds.
The dented roof of standing tall.
That made her slam a moment's door
so no one heard her scream.
An Odyssey
Icarus beside the bed.
The one she wouldn’t leave.
The accidental eyes that
took her breath away.
And pale skies of wishing
life were otherwise.
Always dressing for defeat.
The limb of easy motion
bitten by the teeth of years.
Happy faces on the beach
that drove the nails in.
The barren stump of pride
that rotted in the forest leaves.
Stole her femininity
and coughed it in the wind.
Those who had a way
of standing tall
before the mirror.
Hiking up the satin skirt
of walking barefoot in the rain.
Possums in the forest
playing dead when
someone came too close.
And envy’s rainbow scorching skies
that needed rain of letting go.
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Janet
Buck teaches
writing and literature at the college level and has |