ANDRENA ZAWINSKI

Driving the Laurels

...all the bright clouds and clusters,
beasts and heroes,
glittering singers and isolated thinkers
at pasture.
--from Gerald Stern¹s Cow Worship 



Driving the Laurels, I wind the regular route to a week of work
before leaving one coast behind for another, this rural America,
Pennsylvania greening past Somerset. Driving this road where 
the deer leapt and fell, legs tucked under, head forest bent, as if  
to have tried a last time to lift itself up for one more look back. 
I am driving the mountains laden with words to fill classrooms 
I inhabit in this string of last days east, in my hands these gifts: 

Kenyon¹s peonies and Sandburg¹s fog, some of Harjo¹s horses,
one tidy wheelbarrow from Williams.  Driving the Laurels fast 
past a store that says Open that never is, a roadside sign peddling 
gravel and clean fill instead of corn, the detour roping an Elks Hall 
and Amish draped in black behind bare windows.  I drive fast 
trying to catch some AM news above the static between hills, 
past the silo a funnel cloud lifted last year then dropped down. 

I hear in Oklahoma that 43 have been taken by their own fierce winds
I drive fast past willows at pond¹s edge, past forsythia in the patches, 
johnny jumpups nosing through the berm.  I work the week in rural 
America, cut my way through untamed flowers to coax from children 
a long look at what they hold here: these cows at pasture, their udders 
fat and heavy with what we need, and spring peepers, the high-pitched 
chorus they will bring when night rolls down to greet the creek grass. 

copyright 2003 Andrena Zawinski.

JUDITH LAURA

Lawns Made to Order

You who require your lawns made to order
and cut to perfection,
edged even,

you who demand your magazines glossy
enough to reflect
your own image,

you who want your women lithe, airy,
dancing with just the right bounce
of silicone boobs:

Turn your head away
hide
your eyes

lest you see me emerge through wanton weeds
wild with raspberries
tangled like love

a spider's web my only frock 
its strands lustrous with spittle spilling through
ragged edges of rattling teeth

onto my breasts
creasing into
my stomach sagging

over my shriveling silver-barbed
mount of unending
desire.

Turn away 
lest you see
me waddle 

with the unwieldy limp
of your mothers 
and grandmothers                                                         

their tenacity crawling
from the base
of my spine.

Look away from me
as I pass, lest you see
my eyes shine.

copyright 2002 JUDITH LAURA