Sample Poems by Mary Zeppa

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Abstraction

for Georgia O'Keeffe, who wanted a child

1

She managed the sky:

hip sockets framing
surrounding
the blue

stopped only by
the canvas, the frame.

2

But the skull that is barrenness
floats on white canvas.
Eye sockets taking
in all that they can

cheekbone and jawbone
and thin
yellow petal

thickness
of cloud, floating island

of blue

and red hills and red hills
the curves of
the red hills

that reach out
to cradle the sky.

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The body makes love possible

Galway Kinnell

Without flesh, the spirit
is desperate, circles and tries
to be weightless, be air,
be wind that can only
caress what is shapely
and hold nothing, take
nothing back.

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The Little Notebooks of Anna Magdalena Bach: A Coda

The body an alien we rent a room in. "I don't get
this mind-body thing," said the funny man. "The brain's
in the body, last time I looked." Ah, but the brain

is merely the furniture to house the abstraction
that hungers for saffron, that longs to be
Van Gogh's good ear. That cocks that ear,

bends it toward her soprano: Anna Magdalena
stirs Widower Bach, raises the hairs on the back
of his neck. I'd be their first baby: warm, wet

and living, who dropped into Bach's waiting
hands. Yes, life will come back for us, turning
the carriage round, stopping the jet on a dime.

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The Lit Globe of Her Inner Life

Her hands in her cat's fur, rose petals,
son's hair. In the bread dough, the 6-a.m.-
windowpane-sunshine. Gives her finger

print, lip print, sweet scent, deep breath.
Hums the melody nobody knows. Made
of lump in throat, goose bumps, hot surge

of blue. Made of mezzo-soprano and
meadowlark and the tick of a lazy-day clock.
Made of blood and bone: dance of the Magi.

Made of maiden alone by the brook, made
of leaping fish meeting the pelican's bill,
made of scorn on the face of the gull.

Made of scarecrow, and scared boy,
and wings of the bat as it startles
its way through the night.

Made of every egg empty and broken,
made of story of nobody's life. Made
of chicken who rhumbaed across

the road. Made of savior on
waterwings, ghost of a chance,
made of son of the Sunday noon nap.

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Lovemaking #1

Always two bodies
asking the questions:

the hands, the hips,
the fur along the thighs.

Two bodies inventing
a story beginning:

and the stone rolled away from the cave.