ustxtxb_obs_1983_04_22_50_00023-00000_000.pdf

Apostrophe Your voice carries through the months And walls Between the clattering Of fingernails on metal keys, The cackle of white paper Pouring from a cold machine, Of random buzzers, wires, and lights, The whining of an ambulance, The wheezing occupant ‘ Bound tight for distant places. And I hear it In the thunder of a hummingbird, The brown wings blurred In drunken waltzes With the cottonwoods, The nervous cadences that chinaberries tap On tin roofs in the hills. And when I sleep I see your face In threads of light That slant through angled blinds, Your profile caught between the constellations, Cantering through clouds Like some lost stallion, Dark hooves restless rustling in the trees Before I wake To feel the steady singing of your hands Around the moon. 4010101XVIOWASitc . . te For Emily Dickinson I read that those in Auschwitz never saw A bird, not one sharp beak to cut their view Of nothing at the window, just the stew Of fetid smoke that trickled from the jaw Of a tall chimney. Never heard a caw From fat green cornfields where the farmer grew His prayers. I am told that nothing flew Past those bare frames. No eye, no claw. And yet I know they must have visioned birds Of shape and plumage never seen before, Blue feathers iridescent in the dark, Black jade hawks plummeting toward sound, a lark With topaz talons tearing through the door, A juggernaut of wings that flatten words. Three Poems by Carol C. Reposa Carol Coffee Reposa is an English instructor at San Antonio College. I wish the moon would crack Between the branches of the trees, The silence unmeasured Spilling downward from the clouds, Coating every leaf With every song She ever gathered in her cold white cup. . The secret melodies That forced the sun to rise, Uprooted trees, inspired the rocks, That made the ships change course, The square white sails abruptly turned In new directions Dripping down my back And through my hair Nocturne Until my nerves snapped on the song That harbors every sound, Assumes all shapes, Like Proteus slowly rising And informing All the clear blue void. And then the china chips could float Through open windowns, Lighting on my stereo, The slivers filling space Beyond the scratchy prayers Already prayed And carving sharp new furrows Where the needle Now rolls aimlessly In empty grooves. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23