Le défaut de la cuirasse (The Failing of the Armor)

Rebecca is sadder than her spoon. It stirs
and stirs,
but nothing changes and nothing turns
to silver.
Her ring is no longer
the rim of a chalice--its stone is not her
apogee.

I recognize the low cluck, click, cluck of her
heels and a child.
I know each finger holding the horn
of the receiver and the toes that slip
a slim shoe
free. She sips, married to another handsome,
uncoordinated man, intoxicated with
property.
She wants to be pregnant again.

In Normandy, where children of our
children's children chase and seek,
our obsidian remains are obscure
but threaded to roots

as trinkets to a chain. We rise and rive through
any lapse of stone, bone, mouth
of bone to the oak and bramble apse
of our innocence. Her cloak was conifer,
her crown a choir of antlers and branches.
Her chest dictated the rising and fall of all
things, and water became blood
in the font of her.

Can the priest pretend her body was not
the plan of his cathedral?


Can I pretend her body is not my cathedral?

I have waited through successive deaths.
I have waited until my shoulder hurts;
and autumn makes me anxious.
Trees pretend to root into the humid soil of
heaven. They are confused without their
leaves.
We are all confused.


Do not fear this failing of the armor.

We no longer need tombs to shelter us.

However exquisite a chrysalis, no effigy can
contain a soul's
desire. Yesterday, as you introduced
yourself, you lingered
at my sleeve. Teach me to awaken
you.



Le défaut de la cuirasse [#23]
© 2009 Fammerée


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Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org

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Photograph by Susan Aurinko

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