Dorothy
Barresi: Poems
Straw
Into Gold
| The Nude Detective | At
Five Months
 Dorothy
Barresi is the author of ALL OF THE ABOVE (1991, Beacon
Press), which won the Barnard College New Women Poets Prize, and
THE POST-RAPTURE DINER (1996, University of Pittsuburgh
Press), which won an American Book Award. She has recently completed
a new book of poetry. Her poems have been published widely in
literary journals, including Poetry, Parnassus, The Harvard
Review, The Antioch Review and The Kenyon Review, and
her essay-reviews appear semi-regularly in The Gettysburg Review.
She has been the recipient of Fellowships from the National Endowment
for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the
North Carolina Arts Council. Her poetry has been awarded a Pushcart
Prize and the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Prize. She is a Professor
of English at California State University, Northridge, where she
is Chair of the Creative Writing program. She lives in Los Angeles
with her husband, Phil Matero, and her sons, Andrew and Dante.
Dorothy
Barresi was the Distinguished Poet Judge for the Annual
Bordighera Poetry Prize of $2000 and bilingual book publication
for the 2001-2002 awards.
Straw
Into Gold
Is
the work of this world bitter
but
tidy, too? Companionable in its way?
Webs
across my doorway
are
the dropcloths of persistent
graveyard
shifters:
these
spiders wish me no harm, gone by 6:32 A.M.
But
strands stick in my eyelashes and bangs,
I'm
nearly late--stupid, stupid--
and
cursing the strong urine by the curb,
the
swoonsmell of night-blooming jasmine,
and
coffee sloshes over
my
lead-bottomed commuter's cup, Have a Special Day.
Which
is why I don't see but nearly
collide
with the young Mexican woman
dangling
a child by his ankles, headfirst
into
the garbage dumpster by my car.
I'd
say son, but who can read family for sure
in
a tiny pair of grubby denims, no socks,
and
the look she doesn't give me
which
is pure adrenaline, black, don't say a word.
I
don't. What is there to say?
Dim
seagulls who routinely mistake
half-defeated
neighborhoods like this one
for
Pacific Ocean
need
oiling: they're squealing again.
Without
wrath or mercy it seems,
but
like all the broken theories and weak
planks
of sunlight in my mouth just now,
they
build the workdays
we
sign our names to, and cross over,
and
cross over. So she fishes
the
little guy deeper, this way and that,
exhorting
him in the Spanish I don't have
until
Budweiser cans and redeemable diet
Cherry7-Up
cans come spinning at her feet,
and
flies rise ecstatic there, big as dimes.
I'm
in my car by now, nothing fancy.
It's
a four-door because I've somehow recently passed
into
the clear age and zone
of
dependable transportation,
and
every month a bill
reminds
me of the rate of exchange
for
a little peace of mind on the freeways.
I
remember the kid at the dealership.
Believe
it or not, someone
I'd
babysat years before, in another lifetime,
with
one of those skim-milk mustaches now
and
eel-skin cowboy boots.
"Exotics,"
he called them.
He
was proud of those boots. We've got, he said.
a
rebate situation
I
think you can live with.
And
he was right, pretty much. Which is why
even
now I'm careful to warm up the engine
before
backing out.
I
square my briefcase on the seat beside me,
check
my lipstick, too,
making
two or three big smacking
smooches
for the rearview mirror. Pretend ones,
so
that anyone seeing me must think
I
am two confused people at once.
The
tough one blowing goodbye kisses--
so
long, suckers!--and the other one,
who
touches her white face
to
the wheel for a second, that's all,
then
sets out for the outskirts of the kingdom
on
time, and with proper gifts.
[from
All of the Above, Copyright © 1991 by Dorothy Barresi.
All rights reserved by the author. ]
The
Nude Detective (from The Post-Rapture Diner, © 1996)
--for
God
Your
devices are sensitive.
In
rain and in snow,
in
moonlight that clatters down
its
bright plates and crockery
like
a voice in the head,
you
stay. You lend to our windows
a
fishing pole
and
a microphone.
But
why?
Are
you some under-assistant's
last
hireling?
Nothing,
not even faith or crazy envy explains
how
we provoke you to this patience
hour
by hour.
And
if our daily static can be removed,
our
yeses
turned
to no on tape
the
way technology puts
plastic
hearts in men, or
cheese
in jars,
then
surely we don't deserve
such
a careful listening.
Such
bare attention to what we do
only
makes us act worse.
A
kiss, a gasp--
how
long before you drag
your
sunburned knuckles in some fleshly
circles
on the ground?
How
long before you order moo shu pork then drip
plum
sauce on the bedsheets?
Mr.
Never Kissed and Tell, Mr.
Truly
Exposed,
we're
speaking out at last.
You
wearing just a porkpie hat
like
Donatello's David,
you
with dark circles under wholly
permanent
eyes, we wish you'd get a life
and
beat if for good this time, you goddamn,
you
shivering
angel
who loves us more than we love ourselves.
[from
The Post-Rapture Diner, Copyright © 1996, by Dorothy
Barresi ]
At
Five Months
--for
my son, Dante
I
love to watch your sleeping breath
slide
the moving diamonds of milk and drool
to
the corners of your mouth.
A
nipple is leaking on the pillow.
Not
mine, the bottle's.
You
chewed too hard for that,
as
though one breast made you mad with hunger
for
the other, and then, for something
other
than me.
Where
are you now?
With
your diapered bottom in the air
(a
punk variation on fetal position)
and
your hair matted with iron-fortified
oatmeal
you wore like a hat this morning,
where
in the land of nap's misrule
have
you gone to overturn me?
The
fingers of your left hand curl
into
a fist. I want to kiss them but hover instead,
adjusting
your lamby-pie blanket
that
needs no fixing.
Even
the pastel sheep know that.
Why
can't I sleep?
Opening
drawers and louvered blinds, I'll find
a
chore to wake you yet, then cry
that
I'm exhausted.
Love,
you have done with me
what
you set out to do.
I
cannot rest.
I
cannot not mother you.
[from
a chapbook, Mother, My Porous China, Gone]
Copyright
© 1998 by Dorothy Barresi. All rights reserved.
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