Susan Cohen
Page2
At the Radiation Clinic
On one wall van
Gogh’s trees twist
from his sun, which
tattoos the soil
with their black,
orange shadows.
They would run if
they could.
Even this cheap
print radiates white
and yellow heat to
a dozen patients
who have come to
respect
the duplicitous
power of the x-ray.
My father shuts his
eyes, tries dozing
in a wheelchair
until his name is called.
I study van Gogh’s
olive grove,
its sunshine of
visible strokes:
How he saw through
saffron and gold
to an indifferent
gray, a cold platinum,
a brutal blue; how
he painted light’s capacity
to nurture or
wither, cell by cell.
originally published in Poet Lore
Immigrant
Science can’t
convince me
I’m not related to
this snowy egret
who reminds me of
my grandmother.
Hunched like a
widow’s back, feathered
like a vintage hat,
she picks her way
across a pebbly
beach and toes the water.
Any moment she
might speak,
stern and guttural,
ask me if I brought
a “bath costume”
for the beach –
pronounced as
bishh. And I will say
the least I can,
shying from conversation
with creatures
alien and weathered.
I won’t understand
enough to pity her
the cold, brittle
home she makes.
Only later – when I
consider
the distance that
she flew here
without knowing
where she’d land –
will I call it deftness, call it courage.
originally
published in CALYX
Page 3
© Copyright, 2012,
Susan Cohen.
All rights reserved.
These poems from THROAT SINGING by Susan Cohen, published by Cherry
Grove Collections, Cincinnati, OH, 2012. |