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
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