BREATH

At first I thought her breath was sweet—
maybe just because it was hers:
sometimes a trace of mint below
the antiseptic tang that wafted from
her lips, her tongue, all her body’s skin.
I breathed it in.

Chanel Number 5 couldn’t disguise
the enigmatic whiff that trailed behind
when she made an entrance, one hand outstretched.
I watched her dab the scent behind each ear
as she sat in front of the triple mirror
catching my eager eye.

At first I thought the van that delivered
a heavy crate to the back door twice a week
came from Dai the grocer, except that the driver,
a lad in a sheepskin coat, looked furtive—
and why were there never rice krispies or cheese
or bread in the breadbox?

The day I caught her stashing the vodka up high
behind the teapot, well  out of sight,
she fell down the stairs in the middle of the night.
I found her there, a small crumpled heap,
and carried her, moaning softly, back up to bed,
her breath still sweet, still hers

BLESSED

It would be so easy to close your fist
and crush the small body, spillikin bones
cracking, the claws that prick your skin
puncturing your palm for a moment before
the blushing head falls crooked,
feathers tatty with blood.

Once a man did that on the Rambla in Barcelona
surrounded by songs that were not songs
but the desperation of the caged.
Their cries were his trade but one refused him for a week:
no tuneful pleading, no whistling for seeds, just
a mute insistence on dignity. No money in that.

Silent songbird. Lamb with a crooked leg.
Well-bred horse tilting his head to the left
to look ahead with his one good eye,
the other dark behind a sheetrock wall.
I too, with my bad genes, might have been
crushed—thrown out before I even began.

Open your hand, I wanted to say to the man.
Watch those yellow stripes on the wings
lengthen as feathers spread, each untucking
from the next until the sky takes them. Do it
and you will be blessed with many songs
in your own voice and one jewel for your finger.

from “Signs of Life” 2008
(c. 2008 Facere Jewelry Art Gallery, Seattle)

Page 3

© Copyright, Judith Barrington.
All Rights Reserved.