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CAN'T SCRATCH LOVE
love is an itchy feeling
in the heart
you can't scratch my grandmother said
infection blisters
every heart
love's soothing balm
heals the sores
but the unscratchable itch
lingers
INDECISION
The witching hours are long
in purgatory
false intoxication
dulls the senses
thinking and waiting
thinking and waiting
maybe there’s something more
more thinking
more waiting
until I don't know what
I’m thinking or waiting for
Maybe there’s nothing
to wait for
only a door
closing
there'll be others open
but not that door
not again
BALANCE
Two children sit
on a wooden plank
bodies relaxed
hands clasping
the handle of a seesaw
tettering
up and down
up and down
up and down
in a park
where adults sit on the bench
Legs dangle
weightless in the air
no sky to climb
no ground to claim
child balances effortlessly
then rides
up and down
up and down
up and down
smiles and balances
then rides
up and down
up and down
up and down
while adults gaze from the bench
into the distance
A CRY IS A CRY
standing at the intersection
gazing forward
cars parade by
buildings echo
shadows lean toward
the gutter
littered with forgetting
over the shoulder
a baby cries
a cry
larger than the buildings
louder than the traffic
darker than the night
lighter than the moon
at the edge of the intersection
in any city
in any country
a baby's cry
remembers
BIOGRAPHY BLUES
why won't you meet me for the unnamed dance?
you try to trace me
reach me
following yesterday’s line
linking this with that
Ah... this happened to her then
Ah... this explains that about her
you view my album
you visit my house
you eat a meal with my parents
who fill you with stories
of their little girl
you peer into my room
take copious notes
record the facts
joining the dots
on your imaginary line
with indelible ink
the thick black line
you traced and mapped and shaded is
something of me
and nothing of me
the line of my biography
is like the horizon
by day is focuses the eye
dividing the oceans I fish
from the skies I fly
by night
it vanishes into the dark
where water mingles with sky
to breath the longing sighs
of the unnamed dance
NIGHT HORSE
last night
I lit a candle by my bedroom window sill
parted the curtains
and waited for the hungry horse
galloping toward the flame
his black marble eyes
swam with pearly tears
as he feasted on the flesh
of tender young birds
laying wingless in my hand
birds I'd rescued
from beneath the weeds
along the roadside
who had forgotten how to fly
Copyright © 2001 Elizabeth Hayes All rights reserved
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