Maria Terrone

The Last Twisted Tree

Autumn again and the centenarian hawthorn

in this garden holds on, its trunk split

long ago into three as if at war with itself—

leaving the tree sapless,

battle-scarred, and weary.      Weary

from my  own battles, I feel my spirit stir

when I stand before this tree,

thinking of Daphne transformed, saved

from earthly misery to live inside the laurel,

offering her gift of intoxicating blooms.

The hawthorn’s gifts were bountiful, too; its berries

once fed the birds of this garden, festooning

snow-covered branches like scarlet confetti.

Now one blackened branch arches high across

the flagstone path, then pulls down

like a divining rod that seeks life-giving water.

How I wish that bare, brittle stick

could succeed in its quest, and I could quench

my unquenchable thirst, sip

revival from a buried spring.

Someone someday will cut down

this last hawthorn, knotted mass of brambles

that scratch at the sky, improbably crowned

by tiny, still-green leaves

that curl and cling fast like an infant’s finger—

but not yet.      Not I.

 

What Becomes Her

“We all wait for grief.”

—from the poem “Mourning, Silk and Lace” by Nicole Cooley

 

My century-old mother offers me     leather jackets

she’ll never wear      because      she can never leave

her apartment. Too-large jackets        I’ll never wear either

Photos excavated from her broken luggage:

My mother       born in an East Harlem walkup

standing on a sunny sidewalk             arm raised behind

her wide-brimmed hat      ideal for opening day at Ascot

My mother     in a snug flowered dress

posing with a smile                 for an unknown admirer

My mother     tightening her belted, fur-collared coat

Even now she recalls its powder-blue color

and prestige Forstmann label

*

Buried             in my dresser drawer              flesh-colored

vintage lingerie with a hand-sewn label:      Triangle

I’ll never wear      this skin-caress of death

*

Nicole wore      her late mother’s nightgown,

permeated with           the smoke of her cigarettes

I guess as a way                      to feel whole again because

grief rents—    the self is scattered      into bits

like dry leaves in sudden wind

I see myself paralyzed      before my mother’s closets

over-stuffing black bags for the Salvation Army

my eyes half-closed

 

I see myself weeping      gathering up her perfumed

silk blouses     cashmere sweaters     Valentino scarves

Maybe to molder in a box on a high shelf

Maybe for me to climb up      and touch        from time to time.

Maybe to slip into       and feel myself

 

A Star in the Center Ring

I pressed the morphine button   like a girl

at a carnival who releases the trigger

of an air gun for her prize, the comfort

of an oversized teddy.

That was last night.

Today, the skin near my heart

wears a tube like a thin leash.

I’m restrained, but uncontained,

touchable, but unreachable.

I’m Betty Boop in a sideshow

wearing blush even here, secretly

laughing or secretly weeping, eyeing

a group of acolytes who enters the room, drawing close.

Their white-coated master asks me an unanswerable question,

How do you feel today?

The kids seem uneasy, as if                not knowing

how their faces should appear to their teacher or to

the bedridden and breast-vanquished. They wear expressions

of interest, scrutiny, inscrutable blankness.

I pity the pitying ones, sympathy tugging down

the lips of the youngest.          Look at my pj’s, I say,

pointing to puppies romping

over my body’s now-flattened terrain.           Look

at these buttons, I say, they’re shaped like dog bones.

No absurd, three-armed hospital gown for me!

What to make of me, they must wonder.

What to make of me,               I wonder,

reborn a baby Kewpie doll,

a star all eyes gaze upon

in the center ring?

 

Lesson of the Waves 

Don’t hesitate

when you know

what you want.

No need to grasp—

time is on your side.

Do you seek

a glittering stone?

The hidden pearl?

Sweetest morsel?

The beautiful ones

who try to ride you?

Take them all

in your strong white fingers,

then let go.

 

Google Makes My Husband a Zebra

I’m losing the battle, tired of watching

the B for “Bill” on my phone

revert to a zebra the second I look away.

 

I punch delete, return Bill

to the home screen,

but the willful zebra keeps bounding back,

posed against a red backdrop lurid

as a bullfighter’s cape—turning the tables,

taunting the human.

 

How could I have known my new Pixel

could change a man, unbidden,

into a different species—a zebra?

Some of Bill’s shirts are striped,

it’s true, but none are black & white.

Although his neck is on the long side,

I’ve never seen a dangerous kick

and surely, no tufted tail.

Although he snorts on rare occasions,

he never squeals or barks in alarm.

 

And so I ask, why has Google

taken on such Godlike powers,

and why a zebra? In the meantime,

no animal has invaded

H (Home) or M (Mom). Only Bill

has morphed against his will and mine,

like Kafka’s Gregor Samsa.