Carolyn Srygley-Moore

Walking 29th in Baltimore, 1983

Walking 29th in Baltimore: tired, self-pitying
because I wasn't a bird or something able
to pass the snow-bend
a woman passed by, to my left shoulder
flitting her hands outspread like wings
of hawk or sparrow: what are you doing, I said
I'm flying she said
Just found out I don't have cancer
going to see my baby boy
just found out I ain't gonna die...

Now, if I dove into your eyes as moonlight dives
through the screened porch, spooling
to puddles on the round of your belly where
I trace the dark hairline
like a curtain's frill;
If I dove into your eyes
would I fly like that woman, would I
rather be a bright gash of red
on the concrete like the lavender smudge
on the hat's brim
that woman in Baltimore wore...

(Too much food, too little sleep.
Too much water, too little chocolate: perfect—
because paradise is here on earth, I may as well
get used to the idea.)

CP

Carolyn Srygley-Moore lives in Upstate New York with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared widely in journals to include Antioch, Mimesis, The Pennsylvania Review, and the antiwar anthology Cost of Freedom. She is a Pushcart nominee and her digital chapbook Enough Light on the Dogwood is available here.

Carolyn Srygley-Moore

Regarding Larry

Just before he said he had feelings for me
no longer—not even hatred—I watched a movie
about cast fishing lines & rivers
& brothers outliving brothers, the younger
leaning more toward the treacherous: I fell in love
with the reckless one, & couldn't care less
for his dispassion, his flippant erasure
of whole ships & horizons.

Anger at his abandon was quelled by light
diving through attic planks
into the parlor, where in the dollhouse
pianos played & contentment
of the tourist occurred: for being home here
I was homesick elsewhere. The wild
fig tree bloomed. The fruit was sweet
sweet; walking the hall of mirrors

frightened by nothing, not even
the face I was growing into.

CP

Carolyn Srygley-Moore lives in upstate New York with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared widely in journals to include Antioch, Mimesis, The Pennsylvania Review, and the antiwar anthology, Cost of Freedom. She is a Pushcart nominee and her digital chapbook Enough Light on the Dogwood is available here.

Carolyn Srygley-Moore

Bright Green Thriftshop Shoes

What does he do
when I speak of the darkness that ate me inside-out
the darkness that ate me alive?
He watches me fold back into the blank
like a purple iris
the integer of nonbeing where I turn toward the homeless
woman dancing on the corners
where First meets Maple
dancing in her bright green thriftshop shoes.
As a small girl she says
long ago

CP

Carolyn Srygley-Moore lives in Upstate New York with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared widely in journals to include Antioch, Mimesis, The Pennsylvania Review, and the antiwar anthology Cost of Freedom. She is a Pushcart nominee and her digital chapbook Enough Light on the Dogwood is available here.

Carolyn Srygley-Moore

Commence with a Flower

Commence with a flower, imperfect, red
or the motion of mountains
by virtue of lightplay, shadow, the snow falling
or the grasses, river grasses, dying
as the boat forces its wake:

or his eyeglasses, balanced on the bedside table
with a bent arm
(I watch his eyes change behind them, all day long
a blink, a wink
held in the hot crease of my hand
as if clearing the old leaf-stains
making room).

All of it, as the oak resists the wind
& flails, against the wind
against strangers come with hammers inverted
to take the treehouse down, nail by nail...
voluptuous branches, memories
unripe pears, global, erotica:

& beside the shed, an upturned wheelbarrow, blue
an unused shed, dirty walls of vinyl, blue again
(the voluptuous memory of you
who do not remember
the space between heartbeats
wherein our lovemaking occurred)

& one must end in the blaze of the flower, scarlet
petals torn / whipping the wind.

CP

Carolyn Srygley-Moore lives in Upstate New York with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared widely in journals to include Antioch, Mimesis, The Pennsylvania Review, and the antiwar anthology, Cost of Freedom. She is a Pushcart nominee and her digital chapbook, Enough Light on the Dogwood, is available here.