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Stoking the Fire

Susan Abraham

A Hot January

First publication: May 2008

http://badosa.com/p187

THE GOSSIP AND HER HUSBAND

She was a pugnacious sort, a lizard tongue

preying on overtime. She tasted betrayals

for trifles and gossip fed candy into her body

parts, her soul measured eternity all wrong.

Lungs raced on slippery grace, inhaling

the fumes of slander with clumsy distaste

and tunnelling down, a freezer

for a tummy that shunned its slimy defrost

to bottle up the heady juice of news.

And what with withered breasts for a

rocketed aerobic stretch, pendulums

that even professed circus swings

downside up and forgot their dignified ride

to the grave...

Or she may have resembled a cake, obese

for a sunken oven squeeze. But you, the

husband desiring the obtuse for a potent

perversion rested bravely, a carnation

cradled on a lapel, and plumped up by

rosettes, despondent in the gullied nest of

her feathery skin.

Why, the other day she served me tea.

Cherries from freckles and chocolate spat

from the bowels of a throat. And she wore

the fray from her commendable tray on a

smile that may have turned a wedding

hat into an elusive bat.

She kept her glee with the wee bit

of an Earl Grey Special if I wasn’t to mind...

she whispered its mud brew where she had

squatted with aerobic precision to kiss a frog.

As for the milk and sugar, ferried about like

wallet stowaways, watch her squeeze the

leather dry from dripping fat. More cream,

she’d ask except that a touch of acne pus

would do it nicely and one ought to utter

one’s thanks wisely.

But she was a pugnacious sort, licking your

days with gossip in her body parts and her

criminal toes a quarreling band of dwarves

to shovel up wrongdoings for a fee. Still,

the dutiful wife, she kettles your whims into

a nice hot broth as you wheedle your way

from a sting. And so her fingers scrub and

clean and sing.

HANGING THE LAUNDRY

She stayed innocuous in her belief of fantasy

But deluded no-one.

Why, just this morning, the snow

fell with a vengeance as she hung out laundry.

It defied a March sun and chalked her shoulder,

With shouts of boo while the fallen sky crept

behind, a skirt tug for a scared child.

Humming its winged melody, a stolen composition

The whistling wand of an abandoned swan

and the noisy sea of ghostly windmills, she

was suddenly taken to fancies, picturing the

can-can swing of gossamer threads,

destined to shroud the drone of pegs.

THE DEAD SEA

There is an ocean that sits

in the scared sun and it carries

a blue moon in its shell

to mark the flavour of a changed

sunset, so mind the step.

We swim in the fluorescent hue

with salt as a raft.

OLD AGE

Life stands transfixed on the ordinance of time

and space. I am the reflex.

Heralding a witch’s limp, I secretly dance

the fairy leap, spiraling up my galaxy swirl,

mismatched hobbles drowned my lost worlds.

I ready a parachute dip from where my

toes just miss the shores of death.

But calendar dates and stubborn bones petition

that I not abandon breath.

Still, I was busy counting stars that matched

the lines upon my skin, you would think

that such a feat would breed an easy win.

Once I was young, a careless whore to

fleeing days. Make me my merry way and

I’d swing my skirts no matter

what the cost, throw songs to the rooftop

wind and ride the wing of a magpie king.

My jigsawed route from where I flew then,

precious, strong and brave.

Now, I’ve been told that I would cease to exist

if not for cushioned sighs.

Alas, I who throw parties for an embittered wart

and curse a grunt for a snore would hold on,

my beddy-byes a prayer for dear life, begging

to smile at a sunrise...won’t another one be kind,

while fading to my drooping eye.

WARMTH

I, the spool of thread

smarter than

fat baked bread,

fluffy cocoa, or

hardy slippers

that snuggles toes,

may shy from a show

but smuggle merit

by looming high

a spinning carousel

weaving sweaters

dressing quilts

and warming ice upon a

sunrise, marrying

sentiment in dreary

beds, a dancer

pirouettes

the top of my head.