April 2019
Laurie Byro
philbop@warwick.net
philbop@warwick.net
In 1985, while pursuing a business degree, I unhappily landed in a creative writing class and announced to the group that I thought Walt Whitman was a chain of schools throughout the United States. To my astonishment, I had found my pacing, abandoned prose, and started a poetry circle that has been meeting for 16 years. I have published four poetry collections, most recently: “The Bloomsberries and Other Curiosities” Kelsay Books and “Wonder” Little Lantern Press (out of Wales). https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Laurie+Byro I am the Poet in Residence at the West Milford Township Library and despite it all, love New Jersey, and have lived here almost 60 years.
Author's Note: I chose the first two poems because at that time I wasn't sure I could write and write about my rural childhood in New Jersey. Our first house was built by us on a dirt road, the neighbors had roofing shingles as kitchen tiles. Before that, starting school in 1963, to show I am not that old, 1/3 of the houses in our town had no running water. They used the lakes. There were several "hillbillies" who had been left by their wives, usually through death, who lived in shacks near lakes so they could survive-- they had no heat nor water. "Uncle Charley" as I called him used to borrow water from us in the middle of winter. Looking back and having been shot at and nearly accosted it was just "woods smarts" rather that "street smarts" but writing about it made me believe I was able to without sentimentality. I want to add "The Bird Artists" because our beloved WS Merwin died. The 1st and 3rd were sent to him for his 80th birthday and when we met him as Laureate, we reminded him how beloved he was to poets everywhere.
Secrets
For WS Merwin
A pile of windfall apples becomes
a fox lying nose in tail, a sentinel for memory,
as the late sun turns its fur into rusty barbed wire.
We’ve traveled for days. I’ve told you before
about these mountain roads. About the man
who lived in a shack who borrowed water,
fried me a plate of catfish for my Halloween
treat. I called him Uncle Charley, but he wasn’t
any relation of mine. The night we got caught swimming,
there was another who wore a hood, leafy and torn,
who watched with particular interest while I wrung
out my undershirt, scrubbed my skin pink before we
sat down to supper and I was forced to eat what
was good enough for them. What I thought I had left,
I kept finding again. A pile of hoods in our attic left
behind by the man and bleached white as bones. Clippings
of the pineys and the baby who had been stolen.
We find a fox lying nose to tail, a sentinel for memory,
sun glinting its fur rusty and I tell you, with lips bruised
like wind fall apples, I can’t stay here. Me with my old
coat mended so neatly where I had sewn secrets into its
pockets. Me in my little girl’s voice who tells
you a story with lips that are only slightly torn.
-first published in San Pedro Review
The Mandolin
I tried to tell you about the barbed wire man
and how as a kid I was frightened of that starved
hound of his, the snarl and bite of wire round
the shack that he called home. You never listen
when I am like this. You invent ways to compare me
to a mandolin, your callused fingertips wanting to strum,
to pluck my body like a string. I shake you off.
The wire of my body is being stripped from the inside
out. The lining of my spine heaves with nerves
that are taut and frayed. I tell you I am afraid.
You never believe me. Instead, your nails move back
and forth across the frets of my wrist. You play
chords on my arm, croon “Don’t be afraid, hush.”
You sink into me on your couch and run me through
the lush green forests of childhood. You rehearse
me on your guitar, eyes half-closed against the bright
summer moon. I study your arms as you play,
mesmerized by the clawed fingers, the rusty
glint of hair. There is a river we cross and we pull one
another along through a crooked wire fence.
We arrive skin on skin and only slightly torn.
The wire man sleeps. We replace him with this.
-from my book Luna.
The Bird Artists
When my skin no longer fits, I carry a bag of bones
to the edge of the ocean. I steal the breath from a gull.
On the beach a mother bends to help a young boy
bundle up a baby cormorant. I watch as they cradle it,
hold a wing into the air and fling it eastward.
I thought you could teach me how to fly. I made you
out of sand dunes and red clay. My husband sleeps.
I conjure up you, Merwin, and you, Merlin.
Palm trees and ancient words, a black cauldron
of seawater and fire. You spread the fan of the cormorant's
wing and arrange your pigments and brushes, stroke
each feather with woodland brown or green.
I feel my skin begin to loosen. I pick away the lice,
curl back the sclerotic welt of paint.
-from my book Luna.
Secrets
For WS Merwin
A pile of windfall apples becomes
a fox lying nose in tail, a sentinel for memory,
as the late sun turns its fur into rusty barbed wire.
We’ve traveled for days. I’ve told you before
about these mountain roads. About the man
who lived in a shack who borrowed water,
fried me a plate of catfish for my Halloween
treat. I called him Uncle Charley, but he wasn’t
any relation of mine. The night we got caught swimming,
there was another who wore a hood, leafy and torn,
who watched with particular interest while I wrung
out my undershirt, scrubbed my skin pink before we
sat down to supper and I was forced to eat what
was good enough for them. What I thought I had left,
I kept finding again. A pile of hoods in our attic left
behind by the man and bleached white as bones. Clippings
of the pineys and the baby who had been stolen.
We find a fox lying nose to tail, a sentinel for memory,
sun glinting its fur rusty and I tell you, with lips bruised
like wind fall apples, I can’t stay here. Me with my old
coat mended so neatly where I had sewn secrets into its
pockets. Me in my little girl’s voice who tells
you a story with lips that are only slightly torn.
-first published in San Pedro Review
The Mandolin
I tried to tell you about the barbed wire man
and how as a kid I was frightened of that starved
hound of his, the snarl and bite of wire round
the shack that he called home. You never listen
when I am like this. You invent ways to compare me
to a mandolin, your callused fingertips wanting to strum,
to pluck my body like a string. I shake you off.
The wire of my body is being stripped from the inside
out. The lining of my spine heaves with nerves
that are taut and frayed. I tell you I am afraid.
You never believe me. Instead, your nails move back
and forth across the frets of my wrist. You play
chords on my arm, croon “Don’t be afraid, hush.”
You sink into me on your couch and run me through
the lush green forests of childhood. You rehearse
me on your guitar, eyes half-closed against the bright
summer moon. I study your arms as you play,
mesmerized by the clawed fingers, the rusty
glint of hair. There is a river we cross and we pull one
another along through a crooked wire fence.
We arrive skin on skin and only slightly torn.
The wire man sleeps. We replace him with this.
-from my book Luna.
The Bird Artists
When my skin no longer fits, I carry a bag of bones
to the edge of the ocean. I steal the breath from a gull.
On the beach a mother bends to help a young boy
bundle up a baby cormorant. I watch as they cradle it,
hold a wing into the air and fling it eastward.
I thought you could teach me how to fly. I made you
out of sand dunes and red clay. My husband sleeps.
I conjure up you, Merwin, and you, Merlin.
Palm trees and ancient words, a black cauldron
of seawater and fire. You spread the fan of the cormorant's
wing and arrange your pigments and brushes, stroke
each feather with woodland brown or green.
I feel my skin begin to loosen. I pick away the lice,
curl back the sclerotic welt of paint.
-from my book Luna.
© 2019 Laurie Byro
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF