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Spode Plate
A branch sprouting from its crook a chrysanthemum,
and below, new leaves, a grass snake, a pale line
in the glaze that between us, we can call a river.
Stars, smatterings of the old crowd–Andromeda, Orion,
the bear cub, and now, far off, you. How in heaven
did the plate get so dirty? I rinse it with soap
and water, I scrub like a child taught to have faith
in washing, then furiously, my back a question
mark, my hunch the crouch of a crone with an ear
to the ground, a doubter, but a cloud remains
over the flaring sun and the coiled serpent, smudging
the wry plain of stars. I didn't know this could happen.
I thought if you scrubbed, the stain would dissolve in
the water used to douse it, and the scene–the burning
tree with its too-heavy bright bloom, the black stars
on the charred hill, the ragged maiden–would again
be a place that had heard nothing, and seen less,
a landscape of mild temperance, the smooth porcelain
alive with the sheen of reflected moonlight, where Orion
could shoot the bear along the river, and miss, and miss.
Harriet
Why did I say what I did to Harriet?
She was my age: nine, I don't think ten–
a kind of taunting I'd not do again.
Not to Harriet, who for me still
limps up the hill, jacket torn, stained skirt rent.
Harriet who wasn't beautiful yet.
Monster is what the mirror said to me–
I opened my mouth and Harriet fled.
Now those words are breath, there's no sound
but the hissing wind in the wild trees,
and Harriet falling, as she didn't then.
Bruise
Black bruise an inch
below my knee; white bone, my
kneecap wrenched askew;
knee a blind eye, bruise
a shiner, the pair of them two
goggle-eyes, bridged by
a shiny, half-moon scar.
A battered aviatrix? She
flies above a dream island.
At three, I fell from
a knee-high curb. Mind yourself,
I hear the voices say,
when decades later,
in the bath, my knee, drowned
face, knucklehead, rises
above the water table,
volcano with its violet flame.
Bedpost? Doorjamb?
The hours last week
turned to glass? And if asked
to swear to it, say
what's to blame?
The mind trolls, reels back,
and begins, and begins
again to prove how if
I'd only done that one thing–
but there are so many.
Excerpted from The Watercourse by
Cynthia Zarin.
Copyright 2002 by Cynthia Zarin. Excerpted by
permission of Knopf,
a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt
may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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