Silver Point of a Childhood Scene(Margaret Adams Gorski)
Using a mechanical pencil/filled with silver,/she drew the skeleton/of a memory./Lines flowed with/a vanished Southern morning/on a white base of watercolor./She stood in her third year,/holding a stick of oak/in the flickering light/from the pale wafer/of an early sun./The day came alive/when she touched/the walking stick to the earth/on a Middle Tennessee morning/in April 1921./She saw the magic/of the hour turning green/in her Grandmother's back yard on /South Maney's Avenue;/she wandered by the coal house/in black button up shoes/and a gingham dress --/her wispy, blond hair falling/over a smudged face./Years later,her crimped hand/traced the scene/that had come back to her --/in vacant pockets/of nine am air/trilling with robin songs.
In 1983
Her long, umber hair framed/a child like 30 year old face/with brown eyes flitting back/and forth under my head,/as we tried to conquer a lack -- /making love in her bed./We had turned up/the volume on her television,/ so we could lie there and listen/to MTV play its glossy/techno pop continuum/from her living room./ Sometimes, I remember/the pale landscape of her body --/its soft flesh electric,/as I held her close/when I was lonely/in 1983./ So we lay between wan sheets,/as summer became autumn/and the cold audio/we heard in the distance/from a Flock of Seagulls video/droned indifference./We turned into/strangers with little else in common/but our scattered affections,/as leaves blew and December lit/all the morning windows/ in ice blue shadows./ Sometimes, I remember/the pale landscape of her body --/ its soft flesh electric,/as I held her close/when I was lonely/in 1983.