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The Yell Room

I live in a room that moans,
we are segregated through pitch; that stomach ache
and my sigh.
She covets clothes,
impressions of talent, watches me walk away
with four walls
on skin.
At an excuse, I sit with her,
a candle up to my eye,
imagine a Victorian, a house closing in on my ribs,
twisted wreaths around my spine, tilting my head up,
gasping for breath and a husband.
 
Whose side is she on?
 
I see myself as a hallucination,
crystallized on a window pane.
Through my fingers, the breath,
and a boy down there, kicking coal in the snow.
He sees me,
I know that he does.
 
 
These walls! These growing thorny Rapunzal scrawls!
 
I am kept a lodged sick fish; a silver tongue through my jaw,
a pendulum, swinging,
a fat mentor.
 
I know he sees me.
 
Outside He follows; His eyes shaking,
His wage a pesticide, His society
too cautious of a doctor’s note.
 
My fingers skim the bumps;
childless, my cheeks flushed monthly,
 
so wrong today  
 
and my pace stutters in the room
 upon meeting your frame
like a moth's heart.

◄ The Ask of Conversation

Rhombus ►

Comments

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winston plowes

Fri 3rd Dec 2010 14:59

What is it with you and moths? Actually I think we are both interested in them (just from a different angle) A bit different this one, liked a silver tongue through my jaw, a pendulum,. I have had 2 words in my head lately which fit with these, weirdness to be continued lol. Win

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Ann Foxglove

Thu 2nd Dec 2010 18:12

Wonderful stuff Marianne. x

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Cynthia Buell Thomas

Thu 2nd Dec 2010 16:57

I keep losing the person who's talking, but the intertwining monologues are captivating in word-magic. 'My fingers skim the bumps, childless, my cheeks flushed monthly' is a gorgeous description of ovulation without conception.'Gasping for breath, and a husband' is a superb Victorian comment, and the 'thorny Rapunzals'. The whole poem is just fabulous, Marianne.

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