The Orphan

by Janet I. Buck

Mother, you are my dream scroll
drifting in the tight neck of a bottle
floating a sea frozen by death.
Its vault a box I cannot open
with a single pair of hands.
My hair frizzed by
sedatives of words
latching on the figurative—
when I needed you
to comb its beaches with
unchipped shells of fingertips
now buried beyond
a memory's reach.

Father is kind, so generous
at wallet time, a Noah's Ark
when storms of knives
threaten motion's apple core.
He sponsors conferences of strength,
mugging rapists of my fate.
I tap him, questioning
the unsaid and the sacred,
but the keg is dry.
My arms are tired and muscles
lean toward atrophy.
The wait, a noose on creaking
scaffolds of the years.

The wish to know you—
tumor brewing underneath
the stitches of a tragedy.
I wonder what my stanzas mean.
Hang them in a closet's darkness,
hoping wrinkles shake out
creases ironed in.
My strange skin, this quilt of art,
a tapestry that has no roots.

Janet Buck's poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Poetry Magazine.com, CrossConnect, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, The Rose & Thorn, 2River View, Southern Ocean Review, Disquieting Muses, Urban Spaghetti, Perihelion, Mind Fire, Born Magazine, pif, 3rd Muse, Verse Libre Quarterly, Big Bridge, pith and hundreds of journals world-wide. Buck was one of U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. In January 2001, Art Villa Records released Janet's first audio CD of poetry and music called Before the Rose. It is available at: http://www.artvilla.com/shopping/poetry/rose.htm To hear a sample from the CD, go to: http://www.artvilla.com/mp3/umbrellas.mp3.
Note: Featured author in January 2001
E-mail: JBuck22874@aol.com
Writing interests: Poetry
Poems: "The Orphan", "Caught in Lesser Tragedies", "The Broken Promise", "The Gargoyle", "The Going", "The Bag Lady", "Rushing Toward Entelechy", "The Paralyzed Apocalypse", "Frozen Sonnets", "New York, New York", "Live on CNN", "America Under Siege", "Gutter Balls"
Links: Hot Links: Janet I. Buck, Janet's Latest Interview, Desideratum's Doggie Dish, Author's Den, Active Amp.org—Features Janet I. Buck, Poetry Magazine.Com-October-Janet Buck, The Part-time Postmodernist (August 2000), San Francisco Salvo, Moongate: Janet I. Buck, Offcourse, The October Country , Cafe Society: Poetry Life & Times, Kookamonga Square, The Adirondack Review , janetbuck.com, Funky Dog Publishing—Janet Buck's Strawberry Nipples, Athens Avenue—Janet I. Buck, One World-One Heart Exhibit , Ygdrasil: Issue 9 September 2000