Two poems: Charmaine Cadeau

THROWAWAYS

 

A girl washed up, the body of a girl, and we

set sail until oily in the sun, salt-whipped

hair heavy as ropes.

 

Dropping anchor, we dove into the sea.

Flecks suspended beneath the surface of an old mirror.

Satellites drifting.

 

At the heart of that familiar dream

your claw-first body stalls,

destination stretching further away.

 

Aboard over dinner, we’ll only talk

about the warning given to tourists:

throw nothing overboard. How otherwise

a woman can spin anything, the heel

of a bone, into a skyboat, cast off.

Will drown if caught over the ocean when

the yolky sun splits against the horizon,

coracle turning back to a thin shard.

 

 

KEEP TO YOURSELF

 

Draw closed the seine over

aaaaaaaa silver dashes, sleek impulses, water slipping through

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa cupped hands.

 

aaaaaaa a What’s been lost

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa quietly resurrects in cursive letters, the hammock of

the lowercase r, the question mark an ear tuned

for the bolt’s slide from inside.

 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Carve pages

from a book to put what matters between the covers. And sling

aaaaaaaa the rest in the t-shirt you’re wearing,

aaaaaaaaaaaaaa overflow of apples harvested for a pie

bulging out like zeros.

 

Some part prefers the dark, presses up in a locket,

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa would change in the telling.

 

 

from Placeholder, Charmaine Cadeau, Brick Books, 2013