Jeanann Verlee

from

Racing Hummingbirds

♥      ♠      ♦      ♣

the lamb
 
I.
she used gardening shears to open her last lover’s chest
green smudges staining the rungs of each rib
 
started at his abdomen, face-first
tearing at the new meat, yank, chew, pull
a frightening scene, those long cords of intestine snaking
into her mouth, tendons swinging from her jowls
there weren’t napkins enough for the spill
 
she slept for three days
woke craving a strawberry milkshake
 
 
II.
on her way back from the creamery, she passed a farmhouse
the fenced yard sprawling with playful spring lambs
 
she snatched one for her purse
he was soft as clouds, wriggling and bleating
she couldn’t wait to get him home and tie ribbons in his wooly hair
 
he wobbled into the kitchen curious as a suitor
moved his sad moon eyes up into hers
folded his ears backward, whispered
anything for you
 
 
III.
it was three more lambs before she was done
there was a mighty, steaming mess in the compost heap
flies, rats, and stray dogs circling
 
she busied herself in the parlor with scissors and thread
cutting and measuring, gutting and sewing, working tirelessly
 
days later, finally completed
she slipped into the new suit, stitched the hood
right onto her own cheeks
grinned
 
the boys will never recognize me like this

Yellowfeather
  
He brought home a pit bull one night.
An angry prizefighter, just for you.
You made him lock the ugly fucking
thing in the garage. It was summer.
Days over 90 degrees. He never came
back for the dog. We waited. No light.
No air. One small broken pane on the
window. I wedged paper bowls of cat
food through it so he wouldn’t die. He
grew thin, mean, lonely as an eclipse.
After two months, you called Animal
Control. Made me answer the officer
from behind a locked door, give him
all the right lies: No, he is not our dog.
The owner’s name is Arlo Yellowfeather.
Yes, Native American. 35. Male. No, he
does not live here. No, the dog does not
obey me. No, I cannot reach the owner.
No, my parents are not home. He used
a control rod to drag the filthy, snarling,
twisting ribcage across the yard, into
the alley. Then the hard thud of a dart.
A wretched howl. I sobbed for hours.
Spent the next two weeks scrubbing
blood and shit off the brick walls of the
garage. 10 years later, he appears by his
real name in the Sunday paper. Indicted
for murder. Left the bleeding woman in
a field in Montana. They found her solid
as a popsicle. Stuck, like chewing gum.

the witches
(a love song)
  
they pick at New York City’s
pockmark face, push rusted shopping
carts rattling with sticky tin heartbreaks
and callused eyelashes, hit me again,
fucker tattooed along each jaw line,
50 knuckles crack their own distinct
pitch, melody blooming from
under chipped polish
 
each mouth unique in its cradle
of the word poem, wishbone funerals
for chickadees crushed in their fists, teeth
picked with feathers, blooded talons
used for handmade doll’s feet, children
gnawing as a pup would its squeak toy
 
fingers wind around invisible harp
strings, spells cast between batted
lashes, smirks tucked beneath tongues
they drag leashes without dogs, suckle
anything with a heartbeat
 
and if it refuses the milk, loop the leash
around its neck, tie it to a post, sing
raindrops on roses and whiskers on
kittens sweetly while it starves, dangle
the carcass above the next waiting
litter of hungry chirping hounds

(for RM, MM, COA, MB, LP)

the collection

Tuesday, making dinner for my love
at his stove, I reach to the cupboard
looking for oregano,
hoping for peppercorns
(the sauce will fail without them)
but find instead each shelf
crammed with old jelly jars,
rinsed clean and resealed.
Labeled by hand with exquisite
penmanship: Thighs, Toes, Fingernails,
Glossed Lips, Hair, Noses, Pierced Earlobes.
I pull them slowly into the light,
turn the jars in my hands.
Everything so small, as if
from thimble-sized women.
Swatches of braided hair in every color,
whole ascending sets of perfectly-painted
toes, pairs of weeping eyes in hazel
brown and blue. Then, in the back,
a lonely jar. Dark red with a meaty pulp
and what appear to be small black cherries
pressing their shiny heads against the glass.
Labeled, Unborn.