Tova Brown's Poems

The Human Heart in Conflict with Itself.

And there she was.

Surprisingly calm, feeling the rail press against her naked feet.
Where were the armies now, with their gay hollowness and staring eyes?
Their catalogue clothing full of turned shoulders and mathematical laughter,
Their waterfall rhythms pulled tantalizingly away?
In the distant air, she heard them, buzzing.

And where were her fires now?

"Right here," she thought, "right here.
Singeing the flesh of this bloody blue gown,
Rising in green smoke, smiling through the tempest.
" "I love you," she whispered to the last mosquito.

Where were the armies now, marching with their victims,
Feeling only corpse-like terror
At the sight of a colored scarf?
Their high-heeled hoof beats, drawing nearer.
"Time is running short," she thought.

Softly, she loosened her grip,
Then tightened it explosively,
Hearing, for the first time, the traffic below.
"It's not too late," she mumbled quickly.
"It's never too late to change.
"They'll come in soon, and I'll just say, smiling sweetly,
'I think I dropped a hairpin on the balcony.
That's why I'm out here, looking for it.'
And then we'll walk away together, hand in hand, and laughing."
Thoughts of the possible future poured through her like molasses,
Choking her with their sweetness.
"All the times, yet to come, that I will walk down the street and talk to the trees,
All the times I will fill my mind with screaming, ecstatic fire,
Or fall in love, or close my eyes and see mermaids."

"It's good to be alive," she smiled.

But still the armies marched.
Armed with glittering, vacant skulls,
Armed with long-decaying wills.
Their taunting, silent battle call
Pounding slowly down the hall,
Whispering their victim's name,
And every soldier, just the same.

"It's good to be alive," she thought,

And jumped.

Lawrence

The day that Lawrence came to see me
I was in my apartment, by the radiator and the window
Pulling cobwebs between my fingers.

The blue dress clung, hot and expectant, to my
Waist, and thighs, and chest, and neck,
Gathering sweat and growing limp as time passed.

There were figures on the pavement,
Humming, begging, cursing,
Stepping over broken glass.

The fan hummed, vainly chipping
Away at the lazy odor of mothballs and pine,
Lacklusterly scratching at the click of the oven timer,
And the quiet image of me on the floor,
With bucket and sponge and apron and urgency,
Deaf from the lack of a knock at the door.

The day that Lawrence called to say "I'm coming over,"
I took the towel from my head,
And blowdried out the water,
Having taken care to wash behind my ears.

I slipped into a light green floral print,
Earings, silver loops with hearts,
Stocking socks, heels, twirls, perms, manicures,
And most of the mildew was dead.

I sat on the steps, waiting for Lawrence to come,
But, come grey sunset, there was only a tattered drunk,
Passed out in the gutter, by my door,
Dreaming aloud and indiscernably.

I studied the stranger, and went inside,
Passing only to wonder at the Amazonian warrior woman,
Armored in moonlit leather, bearing shark-toothed spear,
And laughing on a mountaintop,
Who galloped though my head as I locked the door.

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Visitor # since May 25, 1998

Updated: Monday, May 25, 1998
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