Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne

by Taylor Roberts

Tonight I do not feel a rush to put my clothes back on
The silence drips out of the darkness
Like uneasy ooze through the city wilderness

I look down on
Sunset, I dream, I wake up

You ask me about dolls and I answer like my father

I have memories I cannot unlock
With any spell
Hell is this: an unused muse
(that flower oughta be smelled)

I tried hypnosis
I remembered turning in chiffon curtains as a girl,
My grandfather’s sawmill breakfast,
And leaving you

There are those the rose remembers
Combing through the LA noise, her
Fire engines bawling past my windows
Like teenagers’ fuck-howls

The dancer lays down her left ear giving confession to a pillowcase

It all starts somewhere
A mover without a voice

You sing--
I dress, I dream, I wake up

There is someone on Sunset with a basketball now
Silence lifts
And cars resume their swims east/west across the strip.

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No Law For This

The Interrogation of the Man of Many Hearts(excerpts) by Anne Sexton

Never. Never. Not my real wife.
She's my real witch, my fork, my mare,
my mother of tears, my skirtful of hell,
the stamp of my sorrows, the stamp of my bruises
and also the children she might bear
and also a private place, a body of bones
that I would honestly buy, if I could buy,
that I would marry, if I could marry.
...
I'm caught deep in the dye of her.
I have allowed you to catch me red-handed,
catch me with my wild oats in a wild clock
for my mare, my dove and my own clean body.
People might say I have snakes in my boots
but I tell you that just once am I in the stirrups,
just once, this once, in the cup.
The love of the woman is in the song.
I called her the woman in red.
I called her the girl in pink
but she was ten colors
and ten women
I could hardly name her.
...
Maybe I shouldn't have put it in words.
Frankly, I think I'm worse for this kissing,
drunk as a piper, kicking the traces
and determined to tie her up forever.
You see the song is the life,
the life I can't live.
God, even as he passes,
hands down monogamy like slang.
I wanted to write her into the law.
But, you know, there is no law for this.


[copyright 1967 by Anne Sexton]

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