The Oh
I.
The air was dry
and the moon sat low
and the air said No
to the sparrows,
No to the finch,
and No, said they
to the dust
settling in.
The air was dry
and the moon sidled
lower and the branches
they trembled soft
in the wind. Stop,
said the hemlocks
to the air and Stop,
said the air to the wind
and the night crouched lower
on its haunches and No,
said the air in the wind.
My carcass was dry
and said No to the air,
No to the moon and the cool
and Oh, it fell down to the earth
and was blown away
with the wind.
Stop, spoke the branches
to the air and, No said the finch
and the wren,
and Oh, said the night
to the wind.
And I heard Oh and a sigh
and I felt how Oh, past the meadow,
along the lake’s edge,
the cattails one-by-one
they would dry
and begin
to speak.
II.
So I said I am the end
and went out to the desert hill.
The sun she burned brighter
and the day she breathed hot
on the willow who dipped her crown
and sat and swayed in the wind.
The shade she danced slower
and was handed off with a dip
to the grass under my soles.
The sod pressed up on my feet
as my corpse she sweltered.
Water crept down my ankles
as I dug and squeezed the dirt
through my hands.
This land I said where the wells are shallow
and weeds salt the earth
is a land that holds much
and I dug until water spread out under my hands.
No the grass whispered,
The mass of the tree is below the ground.
III.
Down by the birch where the milkweed grows thick
I turned to the sun and my eyes
turned to salt and blew away slow in the wind.
The bluets looked at the leaves and said,
Well, what a fine shade.
Well I’m sure there must be something else
they replied.
Well that could be I interjected
that could be, there was something last time,
there was something last time.
But then the kestrel grew tired
and the sun she moved on to a different land.
The bluets went silent and the leaves they shivered,
remembering that in the end they’d meet the same end,
and the milkweed scented the air.
Recurrence
On day one, I told you my name but you called me Marie. I gave you three flowers, knowing you to understand — that lily meant acceptance, the aster loyalty, the freesia that kindnesses must be returned. Day two we were much older and sliced vegetables. I rinsed the lot in a plastic green colander in our sink, you lined them up on the mandoline. I mentioned it was good we had planted early, and out of respect you took me at my word. On day three the junipers were blanched almost blue by early shade and the soil was cold and rocky and I gifted you a sharp sprig. It was a rendering of your hands. The fourth day you turned out all the sheets and the house was clean and smelled of pine. Day five and I brought my largest tablecloth so all the guests would set down in a ring at our sides. You carefully spread out strawberry jam on a cream cracker and eyed each member of the crowd. The sixth day I twirled for you and you said a woman couldn’t wear a dress so bright and be so vulnerable. Day seven and we took a canoe out to the middle of a still lake. Day eight I learned it was the softness of light around the trees that you desired.
* * *
Day two I had confided you were my favorite so on day four I left and on day six purple thistle was blooming up from the ground.
Seeds
Some years are like sugar and lemon on chapped wrists.
The fringe around my face is starting to curl and I press a cool bleach rag to my skin
Salty skin, and clinging hemlines throng the walkways, and
“Hot fries!
Bet you can’t guess my age,” they joke.
“Fresh lemonade,
How old are you?” they ask, girl after girl.
“Fresh ice cream,”
“That’s . . . too far,” some say.
Some years are like sugar and lemon on chapped wrists,
and lately I’ve been digging again, nails to skin,
they have been noticing
the downward inching crescent scabs,
but at night I’m still running the race track,
head down, around and around,
I won’t let go again.
Fresh lemonade and hot fries are walking by
and he’s noticing me noticing,
following my eyes
that are almost as light
as the growing white in my hair,
he’s noticing.
Some years are like this, the crunch
of a stray lemon seed ,
and the sun crisping my forearms
as I wipe down the plastic oranges
for the third time this hour,
burning hands dipped in the cool bleach bucket
ragwater dripped up my arms,
Some years are like this,
lemon and sugar on chapped wrists,
and the weeks are vats of iced tea
brewed too deep
and the days are bits of seed stuck in your teeth,
tangy lips and bitter tongue.
Some years are like this,
orders of Arnold Palmer in the noonday sun,
remembering an afternoon a year ago
When the gray had rolled in beyond the pane
and I wished that clothing
were but a weather-induced necessity
so I could go out and let the summer rain
melt down my limbs.
Allie Cartman is an undergraduate studying physics at Yale University. She has previously published poetry in the Yale Daily News Magazine and has a forthcoming fiction piece in Quail Bell Magazine.