Reading Sandra Marchetti

by | Nov 3, 2015 | Reading

 

STORM DIALOGUE

 

Storms turn on their stomachs and gain on us.
Cloud decks smoke the windows. Beating cold.

Rain comes in shifts and pisses. Moving west
is the gesture; the skies shave the city gray.

The eastern sky is filled hammocks,
storms twin up like rough moons rising.

Off over our minds,
over the tips of our touch,

razed fields of air click
their wet fingers, hit the glass and ride.

 

LUNCH

 

After a two-mile walk to the stand,
I open a spigot on the raspberries—
blush hearts in the hand.

The crackers brick against my lips,
slide through a stick of butter;
I rub dirt from the tomatoes.

Sorting the demands of red-orange,
pink, cream, I flick stems on the bank,
watch them wash downstream. It is noon,

the bees are circling for somewhere to land.
Fruit breaks on my teeth, spreads
through the mouth’s star—a galaxy expands.

 

MIGRATION THEORY

 

The womb a tent,
lit from within, flutters
golden on the wind.

I’m given to pregnancy
dreams again.

Sleeping, the world becomes round once more—
sleeping atop my midriff. Sleeping in
silence and veins and skin—a globe, a missive,

I’m told the child
is ghost; instead

the sleep is lifted into,
alight with curiosities
curling out from the hand.

Sleep. The light sheet ruffles within.
White moths in flight
lift from the body—the skin.

 

—from Sandra Marchetti’s Confluence, Sundress Publications (2015)