MaryAnn McCarra-Fitzpatrick

Page-Turner (Can One Trust the Narrator?)

leather spined, she turns the
first, blank page, to see the
frontispiece, in short inky strokes,
obscured, so slightly, by paper tissue-
thin, the uppermost corner
wrinkled as if the last reader
closed the volume with an
impatient (or hasty) hand

endpapers, printed in peacock
colors, the whorls of red, blue,
green merging into a whole as
rich as plum pudding

turning the page, forgoing the
inevitable dedication (not to
her, certainly) musing over the
cryptic capitals punctuated by
oh-so-definite periods

chapter one was romance, the
treacle thick on the fingers,
licked off, delicious it was, so
sweet

no eye for foreshadowing, the
page missing from the index
vexing her, and can one,
really, ever trust the
narrator?

no. and so–she turns the
cream colored sheets, looking for
some legend she will understand,
oil black, that
she can trace over. but. no.

placed back upon the shelf at the
last and left to the whims
of the removal men

 

Fleetwood Bridge

the roadmap streaks blue and red,
twisted, knotty, the veins I trace
with my finger….
were there a global positioning system
that could find you, it would be on
a bridge over Fleetwood’s tracks,
casting your eyes over, casting your
bread upon, the river, where we
saw an opossum, swollen-bellied,
amble down to take a
drink, silvery under the electric
light

later,
squinting, so, at the
green, gold, red, heavy-lidded through
years of yellow paint, one coat upon
another, you gripping the steering wheel
as we plot the best route,
from aye to bee to cee and finally,
oh so finally, to zed. and home. and rest.

but now it is as black as a North Korean night on
Google maps, the last candle snuffed
out and no electric light to be seen

brights on the bridge, at night,
a necklace, sparkling, but
hot to the touch, they warned one
off, the wires, too, woven azure, crimson,
grass-green, jewel colored, touch me, touch me,
if you dare

 

Artifacts

what need have we
of another love-poem?
they grace the fluorescent
check-out aisles, in stacks,
next to minty chewing gum,

pricked onto fine linen decorative accents,
ubiquitous as chain-hotel
wallpaper flocked in blue
(a neutral blue)
to soothe the tired eyes of men

still, love comes in at
the eyes, so who am I
to argue? When all is
said and done, some
talk of thee and thou

who is the wiser as the
sun rises, with the gas
still to be paid and
dinner made

the heart still sinks, an
elevator gone awry, when
thought of love-loss in quietude strikes
like a fillet knife to the throat, the
garotting wire shiny taut, so

love letters, dusty, in the
drawer, a footnote (or two),
some ancient, ardent, artifacts fit only
for museum shelves, flowers
pressed flat as a pancake

between printed pages speaking
of love, unspeaking, that
vast unraveling of sense
and sensibility

 

Lost and Found Again

moving from lost to found all she
needed were the right co-ordinates,
internal gps did the rest–
sorting through all the noise, the
murmuring meant to distract, the
dripping tap diverting thought (what
was that, then, I wanted?) as
she stands, in stocking feet, on the
threshhold of the bedroom, framed there,
held, for a moment, as if in a
memory box (this scrap of blanket, blue, this
carbon copy of a bill of lading, yellow, the
rough brown of paper, wrinkled deeply, that once
wrapped flowers)

and has she found some shade of
self again? retrieved, like
a blue wool balaclava from the
bottom of the box: found (amongst all
the clobber of chilren’s things, some
marked with names, more
without, the scarves twisting
into accidental knots)
….

landmarks on the map are
not to scale – legends for schools,
public parks, houses of worship,
all in primary colors, the filiments of
railway lines snaking, sinuous,
off the four corners of the page
….

so lost in thought, coming to the
findings, finally, at the bottom of
a jewellery box, broken glimmerings of
metal, found after all these
years, the necklace, too, of green
stones she thought lost, how he played
with the clasp that final night
….

flotsam, jetsam, the effluvia of
all our days lost, found, lost
again, pendulum moving back and
forth, the tick-tock of sun/moon
evermore

 

Garland

Yes, in as many words as that,
the forms, filled in triplicate,
tucked neatly away. Where? You

do not need to know–perhaps in
the dead files, the contracts cancelled
by those who cannot fly

and she recalls the file cabinets,
row upon row, their metallic ranks, some sticking, some
so loose they would bruise your

shin and catch upon your stockings, the
fine dust from the carbons coats her
hands, the telex shudders as the

yellow tape, now perforated, chugs,
chugs the message through to
Budapest, behind the wall, received

on the other end as she
and the other (so junior) assistants
re-apply blood lipsticks in a nineteen-thirties
washroom, heavy-mirrored, honey-gold color of
the furnishings outside so warm as to

suffocate as the Borden woman
swings down the hall, her bronzed
offspring (late of some Grecian islands) performing
oh-so-perfunctory filing

and tuneless whistling fills the air,
and there’s a job, he says, for you
in California, whenever you want it

MaryAnn McCarra-Fitzpatrick  Published in: Obsolete, Contemporary Literary Horizon, Make Room for Dada, MoonLit, Westchester Times Tribune,  Mount Vernon Today, Mount Vernon Inquirer, Mount Vernon Independent.  Readings: Blue Door Gallery, AC-BAW Center for the Arts, Lola’s Tea House, The Back Fence, Centerfold Coffeehouse,  Manhattan College, ABC-No Rio, Mount Vernon Public Library. MaryAnn lives in Mount Vernon, New York with her husband and three boys.