Three Poems

Abstract

Three Poems Sarah Gordon (bio) Threshold The open door beckonsa way out or a way in when all else seemsnarrowly walled and white The open door is a framefor a painting, precisely measured, carefully cut,handmade, man-made with power to close offas a rope or an eye cordons off or includes everythingpertinent to the scene A clean aesthetic, simplyoffering what it offers seeing what it seesand allows you to see the river, the road,the long line of trees behind which the soldiersstare, then languish [End Page 584] You see them theretheir arms weary with holding the gunswithholding their fire You see them in the lightand think of them at night, your soft gownblowing against you as you sketch yourselfinto Life, entering its scarred and beautiful bodyits wide and open eye Shades The old aunts are still standingin turn, backs to the fireplace,skirts lifted to warm their veiny legs. Out on the front lawn, the crowscall to some distant power, plantingtheir crows’ feet in the grassy crows’ paradise, green and wormy.The father is a boy still, slinginghis rifle, a toy still, over his soft shoulder and heading into the woodswhere he’ll remain for years on end,forever seeking the slippery vagabondage [End Page 585] of freedom, fine fall afternoonscrisping into chill, the winter just ahead.The mother is ever herself, at home and alone, pots boiling overbut retrieved in time, her blue eyesbrimming a melancholy she can’t serve up. Just overhead in the dining room: clouds.Just overheard, the old bickering,with its raised brows, burning words. Someone abruptly pushes back a chair,rising from the table, a tearful tenwho won’t forget, ever, her heart carving a question markat the end of every breath. Tactile Matters Roundness is all. Smooth surfaces,the fat ball you wrap your hand around, that sleeps in your open palmuntil you decide what to do with it, cars that curve and satisfy, lowto the ground, slick as river rocks ahead on the road, which quietlypublishes its next move so that you turn the vehicleas you turn the page [End Page 586] or the potter’s wheel, embracingthe wet clay, shaping it your way. The wild-haired Einstein told ushow space is curved, like a canopy, how the apple doesn’t drop straightdown, but rather rolls down the slope toward the spinning earth, a freefall that takes our breath away. What he didn’t say was howcurves can please, how the whorl of the shell and the full-term bellymesmerize, how we trace the arc with our fingers, to be a part of it,as the soprano’s voice follows the golden stream easily upcurrentand home again, resting in the sweet familiar, while we, the clumsy, off-key children,climb the sides of the ropey hammock, giggling and trying to hold on,to stay right-side-up, the getting in and getting outour scariest maneuvers. [End Page 587] Sarah Gordon Sarah Gordon’s poetry has appeared in a number of publications, including the Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Southern Poetry Review, Confrontation, Arts & Letters, and Christianity and Literature. Her collection, Distances, appeared from Brito & Lair in 1999. She is founding editor of the Flannery O’Connor Review and author of Flannery O’Connor: The Obedient Imagination (UGA Press, 2000) and A Literary Guide to Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia (UGA Press, 2008). Copyright © 2016 Sarah Gordon