ON COMING HOME

 An exorcism has taken

  Place.

  This house no longer holds

  childhood’s fears.

  Gone is the wrestling

  of angst and anxiety

  Once borne in this child’s breast.

  She feels at peace, at rest,

  No need to flee,

  no restless urge to leave:

  

  Home at last.

ROTHKO'S EYES

I cannot entertain this truth

as being someone else’s.

I envision Cassandra

reaching out in her last moment,

retching 
from the stench of truth

And it is me.

I think of Iphigenia 
on that alter stone,

eyes gazing up at father’s

And it is me.

I watch with inward eye

as Clytemnestra plots Agamemnon’s death:

bath drawn,

knife stealthily concealed

And it is me.

“ROTHKO!” 

I shout, gazing on the Eagle.

And agonize,

conceiving corpses

cold before my coil was formed,

And It Is ME.

*The artist Mark Rothko’s

“Omen of The Eagle” was his response

to “The Orestia.” I offer this feminist

response to both works.

ANNA'S LAST WALTZ

She danced in the air,

a mote in the gaslight

soft 

     and fragile,

her moment over 

too soon.

When she thought

of him

It was with a longing

for moments lost,

For a dance never

fully engaged in.

Raw silk

chafed at her neck,

this would be her last waltz.

One danced alone.

Her feet 

never touching the
cold, grey
cement  floor

Once the chair

was kicked aside

And all of her sadness

evaporated,

A mote in the gaslight.

PORTLAND VIGNETTE

That night she watched as snow fell against the branches of the evergreen -- large, silent drops, cool and white drifting at its base. And the bamboo, soft and gentle dancing in the wind.

It was so beautiful, the way its shadows lay against the snow.

Sighing, she let the curtain drop as she drew her comforter from the chair.

Come July, she thought, the sun will warm me by the water and perhaps someone with a dog will be by my side to laugh and rest and dream with me.

Pushing the cap back from his face, he leaned forward and stoked the fire. 

For an instant he thought he caught the image of a woman flickering like sunlight on a mountain stream.

Come July, he thought, I’ll laugh with that woman by my side.

When they met each other at the new restaurant on The Willamette that Friday afternoon, they smiled and wondered if this could be the July they’d dreamt about that winter.

A DAY AT THE BEACH

Seagrass wound,

entwined with strands of hair,

a mixture of grays and auburns.

She rose like Venus,

from the waves.

But the half-shell was gone,

nowhere to be seen.

Inside, she briefly felt

that lass of 20.

Outside, her frame and demeanor

reflected the years of life

she had enjoyed,

And sometimes endured.

He laid his hand upon her thigh.

She rejected the touch.

Too many memories borne heavily

in its weight.

AGNES

I dab her pigment with a cotton swab,

soaked in alcohol.

Check for craquelure --

It seems she is the real thing:

a grandmother 

who, I can hold in memories eye

and study.

I must look at sketches

made before my form was conceived.

I must recall a photogravure image,
We shall call it “Woman with Bun,”

hair balanced softly above

a face reminiscent of my mother’s.

Who were you Agnes?

I hear there were horses.

I hear there were men

who shared your brief life.

What was it of Milton

that made you chose him

to father your daughter and son?

But then,

there was no choice for you.

You were of a different age.

What came to focus

briefly before your death?

What were your hopes

and dreams?

Did you worry on your deathbed

of a daughter and a son

left alone?

Did you consider the day

when I might follow you

in life?

You were of a different age.

Is it purely fancy to think we

would have had much in common?

WHEN LOVERS MEET

She translates herself

into a virgin.

The milk that would have fed

the god

flows from her breast

with the fluidity of modern French.

“Tu J’adore Monsieur Cochon.
You love me!

I travel on to mystic shores," she sings.

"La fleur de lis stitched to my heart,

The door to oysters’ sustenance awaits."