d. marshall's
poetry page 4
As HEART'S VOICE managing editor and as a contributing poet, d. marshall attempts to address the subliminal/subconscious oppression of girl genders by incorporating genderdriven spellings.
S T A R L I N G R I T U A L
Better than San Juan Capistrano swallows
Starlings come to roost at the Montclair Plaza South
as the sun sinks below Monte Vista Avenue
and pale blue sky darkens
in wave after wave of starling congregations
arriving in syncopation
like an oriental scarf dance, waving left,
then right, loop d’loop, fanning out
over the dimming sky, like butter
or ice cream microwaved on high.
Circling as a whole
a loosely knit spread
animated yarns – black threads
with wings and voice
an awesome legion – a goose bumply hour
for those ground-bound as each of the myriad
hurridly drop to a treetop, under which
each curb and marked parking stall
is dripped and crusted in hardly wet white icing,
until a magic dark envelopes
an easy million landing on
liquidly chattering trees
rattling fluidly without a breeze.
PIANO HANDS
My mother plays keyboards with cool, flush,
red-palmed, blue-vein back, ringless, lotioned hands.
Limber, capable, (in my mind), of instructing instruments
to obey hir will in the wave of hir hand.
Shi sets music free through hands adept with whisk,
spatula,
tongs, wooden spoon, and garden shovel.
Hir songs resound in bread kneading, gluten washing, and
pin-rolling pie dough,
and lawyers and judges
for whom shi types,
know less than hir ninety mile per minute talent,
(since realized a hundred and ninety on electric and computers can’t keep up).
My mother plays keyboards with cool, flush,
red-palmed, blue-vein back, ringless, lotioned hands.
Dexterity served perfection
as shi sewed and challenged
using a dusty thimble,
peeling apples for pie, peaches
for canning, carrots for roasts –
an art of wrists and elbows.
Hir hands spread the ultimate peanut butter and jellies,
tomato and cheese sandwiches,
tied a zillion shoelaces,
rolled a million shirtsleeves,
annointed thousands of knees,
daubed pink stuff on poison ivy and hotdogs,
and
taped hundreds of memories into picture scrapbooks.
My mother plays keyboards with cool, flush,
red-palmed, blue-vein back, ringless, lotioned hands.
Hir hands embroidered cases for all six pillows,
stroked tired children’s necks and ears,
cut bangs,
dress patterns and barbed wire
without batting an eye or breaking a nail,
drew life-like pastel still-lifes in chalk on fabric,
turned pages of fictions, cookbooks and bibles,
loved my father and only slapped the air where he had been,
and rubbed oil on backs at the beach.
Hands, just hands,
on their own merit hands,
creating passionate music
and hir hands set hir free.
back to main page
more poetry by d. marshall
