Two Poems by Jeanne Marie Beaumont

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Placebo Effects
by
Jeanne M. Beaumont

 


Taking a Bath in Another Century

Would it surprise you to hear I wasn't the first in the water?
The tub really more of a pan I play a piebird in?
My sister pours water down my back, returning the favor.
Toes salute me, bowing. My knees are capped with lather.

Cuts seal themselves up as tight as love notes
And nails never stop.  I've lost my most garish bruise.
I believe the body is Time's busiest workshop.
I should dry off when thumbs turn prunes.

Tonight I'll leave my lavender and verbena
Along the sleeves and epaulets of the Admiral's son.
I've learnt the harmonies for three new songs.
I have the joy of 26 letters I can work with my tongue.

My sister calls me to brush out her hair. Look

The local painter's at the window bay
(Rough chin, sunburnt nose, speckled cloak).
He swipes a quick sketch in his book
                                                  before my sister shoos him away.




Under "C"

A Caddisworm creeps from
its silken sleeping bag
under "C" in Webster's New Collegiate.
Cuckoo clutches a perch, pokes its beak
into the left-hand margin
where it could escape unlike the
Condor confined in a cage of small type.

Cougar peers over a precipice,
isosceletic ears perked, tail a perfect "j".
Though "now extinct in many areas,"
it still might pounce
like the polka-dotted Cheetah caught
leaping to the other column, lured by
Cheddar? Or a persistent Cheep?

The Coyote thick in winter coat,
feet planted solid as a bathtub's,
extends its throat and bays
against the crimp of page.
An octave of distinctive Cats
relays opposing feline notes, while
lone Catfish is beatnik in its barbels.

Two kinds of Camel trace sand dunes
with their exotic necks and backs.
They are as different as "n" and "m."
Shingled Crocodile, in profile
is the only creature with a shadow

cast from its snout and pointy ears
like a fifth claw under its lifted head.

Fellow reptile Copperhead is curled
in pretzel-like calligraphy
its own
headrest, blanket and embrace.
All these are sketched with greater skill
and charm than Cow: more of an outline
with an eye and tail, detailed by sections
marked like perforations.

Numbers 1 through 39
prod her figure to disclose:
5 is hock, 7 is flank...
23 is the bridge of her nose,
and 30 is brisket, 34 her milk vein,
36, 37, 38 respectively,
teats, rump, loin.

_______________________________________________________________________

JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT is the author of PLACEBO EFFECTS, which was selected for the National Poetry Series by William Matthews and published by Norton in 1997. New work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Verse, Conduit,
The Journal
, and elsewhere. She currently teaches writing at Rutgers University and lives in New York City.

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