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Rosemarie Crisafi
Views from the Hubble
1. The Bubble
Patrolling streets bubbling
with Starbucks, banks, and hamburgers,
past effervescent malls, the river
aerates the valley
losing the race
with Metro North's railroad;
where the Hudson
falls from highlands
in a fizz of blackish suds
until it boils in New York Harbor,
its home;
where, flowing silver,
now and then sun reflects indigo
flames and sometimes, resonates
violet nipples;
on metallic roads,
traffic light strands
blink Christmas
trimming parking strips,
rural cemeteries and
ranch house churches,
faded, flat as bricks;
in early morning
a station wagon points west;
a windshield glares
across a rusted hood
of battered steel;
speeding, aggravated, away
from one who offered
lips and breasts
to her only lover
while a pair of cats watched
the rise and fall.
2. A White Cat's' Fur
In this garden,
of hydrangeas' cinnamon bark
and black chokeberry's curved fruit,
daylight matures; mist,
curls, sun-bleached and skinny, into
worms.
Wet apertures
clouded and opaque inhabit
a white cat's' fur,
laying motionless and dull,
a tattered sallow rose
in the interstate's arms.
Stop in Poughkeepsie.
where a man hammers
a boxing ring
out of a dinner table.
Then the killing goes on:
Fishkill, Wallkill, and Peekskill
to the nuclear reactors at Indian Point.
3. Night on the Parkway
It is safe now
for children to fall asleep.
Night nestles
into darkness, reassured
by yellow parallel lines
until the driver's foot
jerks.
A buck group
trailing a doe's odor
left a secret clearing
of acorns and beechnuts,
birch, maple, and conifer twigs
sniffing urine scented bark
now they unite
in the center of the parkway
staring, ears erect,
jackal-headed gods
with pointed antlers.
The largest flags a tail
a flash of white;
nostrils flare
at the engine's hot
fumes.
4. Jupiter's Great Red Spot
In Constitution Marsh,
sculling through a quagmire
of turtles and skunk cabbage,
watch for snakes
crossing the road
and on the right,
a stop sign
in headlights.
A sneaker, sticky with needles
explains a continuous horn.
Flushing and hulking:
"A bad night. Yes, sir,
on the way to New York City."
The EMT exhales noisily.
In Fahnstock woods, hackled
hands ensnare in canes
of thorny wild blackberry.
In the tangle,
a captive sprawls
unmoving and ashen,
indistinct amid prickly letters.
Brambles run on
as sentences
tied in the knots---
the unreadable script
that is marshland.
In the clamor,
of stressed discussion
audible
here in the backseat:
radio voices crackle
in blue and red confusion.
A garden of exploded glass
chunks complicate
the creation window
of the windshield.
Inside the frame,
a labyrinth of cracks,
a soul may drift.
In embellished branches.
tint and pigment,
intertwined and opposing stems,
edged in iron and frost,
you cannot find a way out.
Simultaneously speaking
in infinity: telephone signals
and satellites distort:
"Could you repeat that?",
" I'm sorry?" "Who died?" |
Rosemarie
Crisafi lives in Fishkill, New York. Her poetry has appeared in
The
Surface, Poems Niederngasse, Red River Review, Triplopia, Dirt, Canopic
Jar, The Rose & the Thorn, Eclectica, Facets, Wicked Alice,
SubtleTea, 2River, Great Works, Nthposition and other
publications. email: R. Crisafi
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