M A R G I E  The American Journal of Poetry     www.margiereview.com

Published Annually in the Fall                                     MARGIE  P. O. BOX 250, CHESTERFIELD, MO 63006-0250

My landscapes bleed as if there were divorces

in them. Even the cliffs of Maui dense

with extravagance seem raw and alarming,

as if a bell will ring and afternoon shatter

with intolerable news, lung cancer,

car crashes, barbarians, plague.

Inland, they’re stoning women again.

They expect us to live

like this and we do.

You say there’s not enough history in my poems,

the morality embedded in assurances

from a punitive yet responsive God.

Listen, you need a password for this.

A gene was severed in transcription.

A tiny genetic mutation and I lost mine.

I threw it away. Now I have the gift

of complete indifference. It’s better

than amnesia or opiates.

I’ve known oceans with more intimacy

than certain husbands. Costiera Amalfitana,
the terra cotta villas above Positano,

neon the precise intensity of candlelight,

each window a portal votive-lit, a small coral

pause awaiting the returning fishermen. The cafes

in the piazza of the Rufolo Cathedral embossed

by bougainvillea, a helix of lemon trees and palms.

Perhaps I should have married Ravello.

But we are speaking of my landscapes,

how the jade ferns seem breathless

as if prepared for earthquakes or poison gas.

My clouds are nervous, agitated by memories

of air raid sirens, acid rains, suicide terrorists.

These are the platitudes we walk

like planks into bays of sharks.

You say it’s always been this way,

the Dark Ages, the Crusades,

the mediocrity of leadership

and the intrigues of shabby presidents.

The 12-year-olds with machine guns.

You say it could be worse. The heart

is fierce, monstrous, confused,

and misfortune an attribute of birth.

It makes the brutally redundant significant.

You don’t know the stucco tenements

of Los Angeles. I spent my girlhood

in graffiti debased vestibules. I could see

rooms within, the wine-red threads

of Oriental rugs, the piano with formulas

for sound I could not decipher. That father

helped his daughter with geometry.

He knew what a protractor was

and the names of constellations.

There is an ancient stone bridge

I cannot cross. And in the harbor

sailboats, there are always sailboats

and the dock, of course, is locked.

KATE BRAVERMAN is a poet, short fiction, novelist and essayist.  Her novels, Lithium For Medea (1979), Palm Latitudes (1988), and The Incantation of Frida K (2001) are available from Seven Stories Press.  She lives in San Francisco and invites you to her www.katebraverman.com website.