Penelope Schott
Page 2

 In this Time of War, 

 I’ve rummaged too long in my dresser drawers sniffing 
 at dead sachets. Even the rose petals are scraps 
 
 of paper with no names written down. So how 
 must I dress myself to walk about upon 
 
 this reddened earth? Today I will wear my snazzy 
 new panties of snake skin, those cool translucent scales 
 
 that slither in only one direction, up. 
 Never to droop or gather about my ankles. 
 
 I once knew a woman who lived through the London Blitz, 
 and her knickers were stitched from German parachute silk – 
 
 all the elastic had gone to the army, only 
 a safety pin to hold her homemade panties 
 
 up; she stood on the platform at Waterloo Station 
 where a long troop train chugged in with the wounded, 
 
 and just as her right hand ascended to her forehead 
 in quick salute, her slippery silk panties descended 
 
 and puddled over her sensible shoes, and she stepped 
 right out of them and kept on walking, 
 
 leaving all that tender and airworthy silk 
 under the crooked and shell-shocked wheels 
 
 of the gurney, so many gurneys. 

The Generosity of Pears 

The small gravel of the brown Bosc 
 gritty between the teeth, 
 
 and a yellow Bartlett ripened too long 
 in a blue bowl, 
 
 its velvet flesh gone milky and wet 
 like custard before bed, juice 
 
 drawing flies, 
 
 plus one decorous Anjou 
 minding its pale green manners 
 
 in a cool metal lunch box-- 
 
 Remember how we knelt in the orchard 
 between arched rows? 
 
 How we pointed our wooden ladders 
 into the rooms of the sky? 
 
 How we crated up beauty 
 side by side in its own perfume? 
 
 --as the rimmed sun touches noon 
 and three grown men in worn jeans 
 
 gone white at knee and crotch 
 straddle the stacked lumber, 
 
 unbuckle their heavy leather 
 carpenter's belts 
 
 and reach into the truck 
 for the packed lunch. 
 
 Remember the wet tip of the tongue 
 flicking the bow of the top lip? 
 
 The full curve of the lower lip 
 that slips over slick flesh? 
 
 The sweet swelling and melt 
 in the spaces between our bones? 
 
 You, I have loved completely, 
 your beauty like three pears 
  smooth in the hasp of calloused palms, 
 each man unshaven and fragrant 
 
 as the white blossoms of April, 
 each bud concealing its jewel. 

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Copyright 2007, .Penelope Schott.
 All Rights Reserved by Author.