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Life Insurance and Annuities Martin Elfant, CLU 4223 Richmond, Suite 213, Houston, TX 77027 o StaLife *0 vet CHEESE t CAKE ON THE RIVERWALK SERVING SANDWICHES TO SEAFOOD, FROM 11:30 UNTIL 11:30 EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK; OPEN TILL MIDNIGHT IN THE METRO CENTER, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS irbi e 4kattproo court Poems by Harryette Mullen Falling in Love With Voices Falling in love with voices Girl you better watch that Thinking what you hear is some kind of music of the soul Voices flying out the radio A voice you can love falling from a third-story window Eavesdropped through a wall You can’t help listening It’s that voice You follow it It catches up with you as you turn a corner Falling in love with voices Out of the blue with cloud headphones you fall in love and make up all the rest A picture made of rain you only hear suggesting everything else because you fall in love with voices You love so many and sure enough they come in through the radio This is how my friends speak to me and others They ride the airwaves or swim or their voices have wings and carry them into this moment of listening Their voices come smooth from torn envelopes Music for the eyes Rewind memory Playback yesterditty soundtrack This is to be sung while listening or laughing Hold the notes in a safe place where you can always hear them That’s how I remember you A voice I love Something dancing out of earshot Music that won’t sit still Harryette Mullen is a former Paisano Fellow and the author of several collections of poetry. She is now a doctoral student in English at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Man in the Moon My bracelets chatter together. All they know is idle gossip, a language of clickety-clack. My hands are excited, drawing pictures for you a canvas of air, a paintbrush of wind, and all your favorite colors. Without lessons we’ve learned to dance and make music. You have given me a necklace made of sugar, a ring made of clover. I give you an amulet, mother-of-pearl, with a face like the man in the moon. We are drinking wine made from flowers, embroidering stars into a canopy for our bed, and everything we tell each other is a song. Pharmacopeia The dream I swallowed has taken effect. It hits my bloodstream like a powerful drug. A successful spell, it roars like a bullfrog in my arteries, swelling my heart into a fat enchanted apple. A seed cracked open and a tree fell inside. That is how I entered this dream that began as a speck in a fruitful eye. I could be made of wood, but inside this sleeping tree a witch is stirring her cauldron, a simmering pharmacopeia of healing images. Sleep is a laboratory where landscapes and faces, bodies and music, tongues and dances are tested for their curative powers, their unexpected quirks and combinations. My dreaming veins are test tubes for a witch’s chemistry. The body sleeps its conjured sleep. My arms lie still as broomsticks. My toes forget to curl, my back to arch. The dream is working its magic. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19