Sarah
Busse Sarah can be contacted at 608-831-0094 or by e-mail at sarah.busse@tds.net. More on Sarah at bookthatpoet.com/poets/bussesar.html. |
January Bride
Regarding the caged bird: we’ve got it wrong.
A bird is not the victim of its song,
or say the cage is not a cage.On that wedding night
I was a white dress carrying flowers that were white.A canary sings its loudest hymn of praise
when there’s a formal structure to its days,
or say the cage and song are one.On that wedding night
I was a white foot stepping through a snowy street.The heart is caged by ribs but none will claim
it would beat stronger still without its frame.
Or say the bone’s necessity.On that wedding night
I was a red coat vanishing in the dark.
First appeared in The DMQ Review
• • •
First Letter to Sylvia
You would name this a blood season, wind
chill, gusting against. I cannot feel
my face, now I’ve walked this morning here
to meet you under the eucalyptus,
beside the mirror Bay, air thick with fennel.
Slowly the noises cease. The breath comes back.
Dear genius, dead girl, what can I tell you of sea
or moon, more than you know?
I grew up in a rivered land of corn and limestone,
humid and deciduous, seasonal as a living room.
Think of a Victorian house with tall, tall windows.
Think of a round, lonely girl who loved November.
Some part of me still drives those roads at night.
I would have you know me, a little, to know it isn’t
blood, just the ruddy grass of the tide flats,
as two by two the planes come in over the water.
First appeared in Willow Springs