The door is fallen down
to the house
I used to try & pry open,
in & out,
painfully,
stiff tears.
I sit underneath the cottonwoods--
Friends,
what am I meant to be doing?
Nothing. The door is fallen down
inside my open body
where all the worlds touch.
La Chalupa, the Boat
I am twenty,
drifting in la chalupa,
the blue boat painted with roses,
white lilies--
No, not drifting, I am poling
my way into my life. It seems
like another life:
There were the walls of the mind,
There were the cliffs of the mind,
There were the seven deaths,
and the seven bread-offerings--
Still, there was still
the little boat, the chalupa
you built once, slowly, in the yard, after school--
Jean Valentine
from Little Boat
2 comments:
I think this is Jean Valentine's best book--it has everything that is great about all her other books in each poem, each line!
I agree anonymous, each line spare and shivering. Thanks for stopping by.
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