SAMPLES FROM THE BOOK
Copyright © 2022 by Martha Readyoff

The Good Girl 

she traces with her eyes
the Herati design
on the carpet of muted hues

she thinks of sodden dresses
and glass menageries
Ophelia and Laura
Mrs. Dalloway
and her perfect flowers
Charlotte and yellow wallpaper

her troubles are not new
she comes from a long line of good girls
trying to be loved at their own expense

Eve she thinks    Eve got it right
she was not a good girl
and yes so the repercussions
were pretty far reaching
but what she wouldn’t give
to have seen Eve’s face
as she was tossed out of paradise
certainly a curl at the corner of her lips
as she glanced back over her shoulder
and rolled her eyes

lifting her eyes from the careful carpet
she sees her own face on Eve’s
sees herself walking south
with nothing on her back
nothing in her hands
but a lurid apple core
she will toss it
and with the back of an untrembling arm
wipe the juice from her chin

Riqueza

Guanuato, 2014

at an outdoor café
we watched a little girl
and her abuelo
playing with a ball

the ball was
nothing
half-deflated
dirty and dull blue
it was not shiny              
it did not light up
or sing

but as he tossed it
and she chased it
her peals of laughter
rang
like cathedral bells
across the plaza

his smile
was wider
than the rio grande

What the Cow Knew

what is that above
she startled herself
with this single
bluepulse of wonder
before being pulled back
into the aching sinews
of her awareness

it was hers this awarebeing
sentience manufactured
by uglylittlegods
as though she had been
a steel part
and not a living whole
but it was hers
hers

like all souls made of flesh
she began
within flesh of belovedblood
beloved before
she knew the air
and the torment
she would bear
even now
in this sudden
bluebrief wonder
a milkwarm memory
shivered through her body

love she carried
through the filthyprisons
the rendingandtearing
the immolation of her motherhood

love transfigured
to lowingsorrow
child after child
stolenstolenstolenstolen

there was the smallpink
seeking of soft mouth
sleekuncertain body
wobbling beside her
puffs of birthfragrant steam
the widewet eyes
then they were gone
gone

now the air
in the delicate curl
of her nostrils
copperstinking with fear
now the air
in her velvetears
keening with death

wombworn
heartharrowed
brokenbodied
she looked up once more
at the sacredsky
the frisson of wonder returning
and knew her life
sheknewitall
she knew it all
even as she was
thrust through
the lastdarkdoorway

Snow Script

restless
I emerged from musky sleep
to seek out pediscripts
written across the white field

over the wall open the book
mouse ran here    deer leapt
rabbit stapled its tracks
from hedge to horizon

I am not alone
it is as though the living ones
that left these verses
are near     the animal warmth
of their presence remains

as I read I write
leaving my own story
in the snow

here was someone seeking something
not food or shelter
walking where there is no reason
just to walk

under blue shadow bowers
I stand for hours
thinking of a word
to describe the colors
of a lichen covered birch

I come home to William
dipped in white sunlight and
broken rainbows
purring on my desk

and the worry of finding words
leaves like a sad ghost
the world is already a poem
perfect with or without me
and as long as I am here
I will read it again and again

Kintsugi

only the young love the unbroken
the new toy
we get older
and perfection becomes
an abstraction
we admire
we look toward
with loveless eyes
as we do with masterworks
displayed on blank walls
of cold museums
it calls for sweaters
and thinking of clever things to say
that you do not really mean
or comprehend

but the flaws
we love the flaws
the scarred hand
the wrinkled dress
our cavalcade of sins
the undusted shelf
the overdue bills
and unfinished poems
the stutter and pause

we love the flaws
the places
where we cannot quite mend
we fall in love with the cracks
which we fill with gold

Wild Warblings, Come

it wasn’t
someday
you were waiting for
it wasn’t
the promise
what you were waiting for
like a damsel in a tower
wasn’t ever coming
from the witched woods
on the back of a white mare
it was always
already
with you
waiting for you
to open your eyes
to this day
to look up

with rapture
at the spray of stars
the milky shadow
of creation
to summon the wild warblings
to open your mouth
and sing back
to the summer frogs
to taste for the first time
the oatmeal
you have eaten every day
since you were five

somewhere
there is a girl
in a silk dress
hoping for
anything
to happen

somewhere
clothed in jasmine air
eating plump figs
a young man
sees himself
crossing the tundra
on the hump of a wooly ox
and a gaucho
gallops over the Pampas
dreaming of a nightclub in Paris
the phantom
someday

vanishes
the mirrored chimera
(that distant Camelot)
of someplace else
cracks
when you claim
this moment
shining or pricking
or grimy or vibrant
or brimful or broken
when you stop
waiting
to save yourself
and just do