Deborah Kerr and so on...

In the scene everyone knows,
she falls on the beach, fixed
as a footprint that won't wash away.
And the others like her,
Marilyn's skirt petaling
around her waist, Ingrid's
soft tears in the fog.

I remember my mother twisting
red lipstick from a tube,
nubbing its surface, searching
for the faces it promised.

And the nights she tissued
rouge from her cheek, sighing
as my father faded like the edge
of a wave returning to sea,

the light bulb above them
hanging like a white fruit,
inedible, unpicked. Below them,
the carpet, a calendar of sand
where tomorrow would be another day.








Still In The Laundromat

Here, in the laundromat,
where stained sheets rise
into freshly washed linen, the scent
of warm fabric can be remembered
and forgotten in the toss of a minute.

The dryer has rocked to a stop.
I gather my bundle of clothes.
The sudden heat reminds me
of my first love,
which I also pulled too quickly
into the circle of my arms.

I must loosen the cling
one sleeve has around another,
and as I do, I think how tangling
and untangling involve the same motions,

and that the heart ought to be thicker,
but it ticks itself from one side
of a memory to another, beating
louder and longer
on its slow way to forgetting.