Odds and Ends to Think About

      The Ever-lasting Cold

  Fiorella's brain

  Has gone down the drain

  Taking loads of mucus with it--

  So if this poem

   Hits you at home

   See a doctor, take a pill, and resist it!

 

       Two Weeks After Miscarriage

Sometimes I wake up in the early morning---

And cry, unable go back to sleep despite the pills,

 The calming darkness, or the warmth

Of my husbands arm's holding me close,

Then, losing the trail of my gown as

I leave the bed and go to the kitchen to weep

For the baby that never was.

           January 27, 6:32 am

 

Defiance          

Quiet as the grave that will hold me fast

When death has dumbed the drumbeat of my blood,

Beneath the soundless soil, still at last,

I'll sink in silence toward the muffling mud--

But until then, I'll clatter through your halls

And shout hello to friends and wail goodbye

I'll laugh aloud within your stately walls

And shriek my anger to the sombre sky--

The dead are not notorious for their noise

So I will lie a long time quietly,

But until then, I'll use my loudest voice

And make the whimpering world resounds to me--

     So when at last I'm muted by the all-absorbing ground,

     My unaccustomed silence then will deafen you with sound!

 1982