AS THE BIRD FLIES
I have
grown spider-legs among the brambles,
nimble
through the crevices, lithe between
thistles.
When I look up any bird will do,
wings
insisting on this air, this high
holiness.
They will not cure the lonely,
feed
the beggar (surely, I’ve been one).
Made
things demand their corners,
willing
enough to lend my touch or eyes
a measure
of their story. What I hold refuses
to be
mine, the way jazz flies off without
the melody.
These are slippery days and close.
As
the cat creeps onto the wire of my
memory,
his yellow eyes turn mine to glass.
Fire
troubles even the house of stone.
NO WANT FOR AN ANSWER
a wonder on the wave – water become bone.
Exeter riddle No. 68
Swim
among the flotsam.
The shore
too much a ground for planting.
Do not hold
me
to the logic of rocks.
Under
the dome of the uncertain
sky,
the wash
of waves.
Dark rises
from its primordial depths,
mingles
its entanglements
with light.
I am
tossed,
my mouth a cup of syllables,
new-made,
holding
their riddle,
perplexing as bone.
Peggy Aylsworth is a retired psychotherapist who loved her work, but at 90 she is glad to have some time off. Her poetry has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Ars Interpres (Sweden), The Houston Literary Review, Rattle, The MacGuffin, and numerous other journals throughout the U.S. and abroad.