Claire poems
The lyric "I"
It must blur around the edges. Like Claire’s lipstick
Until worn by kisses and party martinis
The lip, the girl’s lips, show.
And not like the party Doyenne
Famously ever young, whose cosmetic
Is a non-disclosure agreement
Until she goes home, where even hubby number two
Is not to be privileged with a glance
Of exposed neck, eyelash and lip.
- Damn, metaphor has led me into the particularity
Of a solitary drinker’s hilarity.
It is for you, Claire. Whose lips I’ll never again descry
Until we all meet in heaven, by and by.
Claire
Claire taught me the larger gestures
The kabuki theater of entrances and exits
In sky high boots at the Killer club
Sweeping into the backseat of the taxi at 2 a.m.
The seriousness at the center of silliness
A moral position, stoic,
Enduring the battering of ten thousand bragging boys.
Claire taught me the larger gestures but
Claire died. They dragged her body from the river.
She chose the largest exit. And though I see and feel
The moral position, I can only visit, stricken.
They buried her in Alpharetta.
Oh Claire. Honeychild.
- Karen Chamisso
No comments:
Post a Comment