Sharon Leiter

Sample poems:

Raga

There will be butterflies at midnight,
for I have kept the chaos.
All my little ancient ones lie pocketed
in steamy crevices below.
The night rides high through all my windows.
The window is the night, the night
is no lucidity to blend with
candle. Into it I invite the planet-winds,
the crouched harangue of insect life,
the twith and twang of sudden birthings.


The Lady and the Bailiff of Time

When the hours howled outside
my great, indulgent, dying house,
you lit a sane English fire.
You sipped your tea in the teeth
of the wilds and muttered
patiently all night above the ruined
books of my estate of time.

Wedged like an anchor in
the center of the living room,
you declared a simple viability.
This, though I stamped and bled,
picked toads and vermin from my head,
and other proofs of my philosophy.

Smiling politely, you said
I'd catch the death
standing around in
those tattered gowns.

Your wholeness shattered me.

In time, the snakes of my Medusa's
head went running in our garden.


Alchemies

The ache was the knowing
that life, whatever else,
was not ongoing. There was
uneasiness in this. I clutched
at ropes. The lights went out.

I grew

my secret wishes like a dowry,
like a garden, until they bloomed
and blew like pinwheels
in the ancient corners
of our darkness.

But yesterday again, we entered
that cold miniature, the lake,
and walked amid the boarded
domesticity ashore and heard
the cries of invisible dogs.
The waters, stopped and slate,
rose up before us like a coffin
trimmed in lace.

There are deaths

outside our heads. Not even flakes
of snow hold hands, but crystalline
in nature, either thaw, or, stretching
futile fingers, stand astonished
and apart.