Liberty Rose Elgart-Fail

Written by Liberty Rose Elgart-Fail

Wednesday, 27 February 2008

Editor’s note: This week’s Poetry Corner features the work of Liberty Rose Elgart-Fail, a writer and performance artist living in Santa Cruz. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in expressive arts with concentrations in writing and speech communication from Ithaca College. Her work can be found in magazines, college curriculum and it is also featured in the Library of Congress Sept. 11 online collection.

Unrelated

Six degrees
Can make a difference
You feel the drop in temperature
Between you and another person
Things get frosty
You hug yourself a little
You can’t ignore it

But if it’s six degrees the other way
Suddenly we are in each other’s face
No denying the possibilities
Between any two people on the planet
Between you and me

Without

To be listless
Without plans for Thanksgiving
A latchkey adult
Old shame of no family
Scuffing about
Under the traditional shadow
Of other people who have
Plans.

Strutting Out of the Park School

I’m feeling sexy because I’m not one of those so-skinny-they’re-shrink-wrapped leather pants Gucci purse slinging girls but my own tank-topped seventies kinda girl. I like it even better that retro isn’t “in” anymore and that my tummy is too big to wear this little outfit so check me out because today the sun is shining and I am free. Set your eyes on the curves that come from those extra pounds not silicone and know when your dad was attracted to your mother—this was why. This is why Marilyn Monroe was a curvaceous delight served up warm and round on calendars and posters (at least a sized twelve woman of substance) and why I’m taking some pride in the way the black lace vest swings over my round backside. I’m liking the way my rose quartz pendant swings down over my full breasts because today is about catching on to my sexy ways with the hair that flows down across my shoulders curling around the secret of my smile and guess who it’s meant for? Just me until you all wise up.

26th Street in Manhattan

firehouse workers
are up to their waists
in tired, thick piles
up to my waist
the once bright roses and daisies
are yellowing into browns
in tired, thick piles
by dimming candlelight
time creeps and turns us into
paper thin digitized photographs

staring straight through me
are posters row after row
falling into useless epitaphs
rotting into headstones
large lettering like blackened teeth
Sodden paper bells tolling out:

“My Mother Is Missing.”
the little boy pictured in her arms
has already worn black
and stood beside her empty coffin

“My Husband Is Missing”
her wedding band
holds her
in death’s vice grip
I have to keep walking

“My Sister Is Missing”
keep walking or I’ll drown
“If you see her call...”
meaningless

“My Best Friend Is Missing”
missing ... missing ...
I have to go to a dentist appointment
meaningless
impossible
the end of the block
I want to lie down on the pavement and weep
we all do

instead we keep our appointments.