Carolyn Srygley-Moore-

Riddlers Amidst Galaxies

The riddler speaks & everyone listens.
There is new snowfall          drifts of black snowfall.
The driveway is not treacherous    yet.
The riddler speaks       face painted
green & gold & red             with chalk ash
one draws circles within
as within the milk of the lotus.
                Genital flowers.
There is a galaxy within my right breast.
There is nothing to do about it.
The riddler speaks         gloves turned inside-out
as the earth is turned upside-down
as trees are grown          roots to the treacherous sky.
One must have expectations.
For the breast to empty         itself
of the galaxy             the planets & moons filled with water.
                                  We are happy enough.
I explain the surgeon's visit to my husband.
I told him                  I think there is nothing wrong
& he believed me.             We agreed
there is a galaxy in my breast
& beyond that              another world forming.
Another earth to build a yellow house upon.
                                                          A way to right the trees
as the green-gold riddler speaks. Cancer is jagged
like cauliflower         he says            your planets
cast no shadow            light gleams
through to another side.



Wine & Monsters & the Infinite Zeros

They drink their wine. I drink my blue monsters
as by intravenous injection: they numb me.
I am aware more than ever how we are stalked
by endings.          By an age when
we carry our dying for years
we do not leave the wounded behind
backs bent & broken          like the iced-down trees
we bear red stretchers laden with those
with ribcages broken open to massage the heart
to massage the very blood.
                 Do not misunderstand.
I will carry even the dead
past bends in the road         as the sun keeps going down
but I prefer to whisper to those who stalk endings
who are not stalked by the finite         who take charge
adjusting the thermostat when the temperature is below zero
tracing zeros in the mist on the bathroom window
the mist of their own breath
the linked zeros of the infinite.
 

Baltimore to Albany

In Baltimore reading Rilke
I saw the city's last wall peeled away from the grates
I saw the city's last train depart
I saw the lamp shimmy on the bedside table
I saw a woman slumped on the curbside
peeling her face off in both hands
as one might peel an orange.
Only the blank was revealed beneath.

Pink pink.        The sun or the moon, pink
as a baby's crib cap
if she is a girl-child    born Good Friday.
Born in Albany.     The spaces between
Baltimore's last wall standing
& Albany        are specious glimpses
of an entity falling
backwards through the blank of
a veritable dawn.

Carolyn Srygley-Moore lives in Upstate New York with her husband and daughter. Her work has been widely published, and radio or blogzine interviews can be found via Google. She has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best-of-the-Web. Her books Memory Rituals: an Army of Suns and Enough Light on the Dogwood also can be found via google. More work can be found on Carolyn's facebook site. She has two or more books forthcoming in 2012.