Kristine Snodgrass
Hester’s Room
There is a verby miscreant in my bedroom. She is a lilac sizzling on
the desk. She sits solidly with no thoughts—and I admire her.
How do we rein in the petals? How do we paint hair and lives with
scrambled eggs and friends? There is a raisin that fell into that
publisher’s lap. It is cold, it was supposed to be in some cereal,
cookie, or dust pan. I want to put it in my mouth. I want to suck the
dryness out of it. Evaporate myself.
There is no glitch in a fledgling starlet. She is not sending cloth
diapers out. She is not making casseroles out of gowns, and dying
her hair gray and stringy.
I am the glockenspiel.
See? Hold it up to the transfixed sun and hit. We are all writing
Morse code. - - . . . .
I am the radiation sickness.
Plaster me to a harness and send me away. Pull me up by my
intestines and sing. But what song? It could be a ditty about love (no
you can not say that) and menses.
How do we decide on the favorites? In some fashioned molecule we
know which dog to buy and to bury. Suck love for animals. Such
pity and devastation.
Remain vigilant Hester. Cast a ceiling tile over your re-growth and
see the days of your room.
I am a room. I sit in the conspicuous loneliness.
Be pleasant to the sponsors of recollection. They are pale and good
humored. They eat pearls and strings of gold. I want a diamond
Hester. Produce this room and send a lonely woman to her stable.
But, we are not having a conversation. You are subliminal and I have
said too much. Still, sit with me in this inappreciable status. There
are only consequences of casted bronzes and Rome.
I am a vestibule.
Why are you crying, Hester? No, no it will be okay in the lamplight.
We can turn all that singing down, lock ourselves away, and only
walk in water. Let’s go. Jump.