Passing
Are teapots art
if sufficiently awkward
or plates
with a poisonous glaze?
I keep dreaming of making things that might, like the beveled
edge of a mirror, compound value:
method antinomic, attitude questioning
result, still sometimes birdshit-
in such dreams I am always responsible
for the distance between burnt umber and brown
the roots concealing themselves
in the pilled wool of my pullover
my eyes a soldered bridge
mute before the questions, what's it for?
how long will it last- if irony's passé
shall we bring on beauty, the kind that has absorbed its opposite?
If not why not hovers over
virtuoso, tour de force & trompe l'oeil
but who can know the depth of even one's own heart-
access is guarded by a hard flame.
My ever-breaking promise of bliss:
If it holds water, is it art?
No matter how the poplars hold back the hill
as straight as any trees could be
they sway, as a mountain can appear the only one
or a link in a colossal chain.
One writes in a trance, the other applies Teutonic discipline:
shouldn't it look easy?
Let's varnish usefulness for long duty-
Christmas in the tropics-let's festinate
the yellow daisies into bloom, so icy in their blown glass-
—Natasha Sajé
____
from Bend (Tupelo Press, 2004)
A Minor Riot at the Mint
Custome is the most certain Mistresse of
language, as the publicke stampe makes
current money. But we must not be too
frequent with the mint, every day coyning.
Ben Jonson
Into my pocket slips a folded note, creased
like labia, cached with private promise.
Pea blossoms in broth. And my in petto
pleasure in thinking the missive
for me, the edges keen against
my thumb, my plotting to be alone and open it.
Is it tame as a Hepplewhite chair
or nubile as a pitchfork?
The ship rolls through open water,
dirty in the bay around Rio.
I'm a crazy sailor on the gravy boat,
a woman of means. This letter's mine only
till St. Geoffrey's Day, and if
the paper degrades, that's how it goes
with money. I'll wave the wealth
where any frigate bird can snatch it.
O my mackintosh,
my bilbo, my cistern, my confiture,
I love you so much you breathe me away.
—Natasha Sajé
____
from Bend (Tupelo Press, 2004)