Poetry

Patricia Brody

PORCIÓN OF PASIÓN

You made me. Oh you
made me, so pearled and quaking
I fell down your lava stones
coming to pieces under your blue-black… what

spiked with Southern stars
                    breath of stars
but then — you dumped me
like the Dipper, tossed into the balmy night.

                    Thank God the children wake
                    (I made them), half the world away
                    eyes ablaze with trust.
                    Packed with need, they feed me.

And I made you too.
Those bronze, perfect limbs
your dark mouth rare as game I sucked
until I tasted blood…

You. Cocktail trópico, lure me
to your warm sea.
I thought to pour you on my wounds,
but you bled me.

Thanksgiving

                    Bares me this
Message — raveled hope of mail, re-routed
To our suburban forest. One scrawny pine bough
Flickered over sun-patch on the soon–to-slumber earth.
Next day dawned unseasonal — global warmth
Takes diverse narratives. I’ve forgotten the exact
Definition of String but I heard
A low whistle, quick rustle
Through the four-five curled leaves
(Remains of last month’s finery) seismic plunge
Prized tanager, red dash
From branch to grass
Singing me my portion, this day’s bliss.
Or just my damned tinnitus.

Danger in the Night

He said he left a twenty on the table
She blind, too -much-to-drink-disabled
“You must have seen me.

                    Now we’re getting into trouble,” says he.
Before she even got her sentence out — —
Slight snarl, his, underground madness

bubbling up – potent bitches brew.
She so high – adrenal-estro– rush.
expectant, peppermint in snow.

She knew it wasn’t love.
Fine. ________What to call it, hungry?
Something red already smeared, and ready.

Something ready in his voice to rust, revenge
her girlish play.
He was just Mr. Rage with good fingers.

                    Now, how could that explain it?
She was willing, even pleased.
All along, he meant to leave.

She knew it wasn’t love
So what explains this — He said
he left a twenty on the table.

He said impatiently “You must have seen me
put the twenty down in front of you”
Well, no she hadn’t. Fluid but disabled

out she stumbled into dirty ice-banks,
her steps treacherous, ______ post-fest motion tabled,
dingy slush on village sidewalk.

Or with his hidden, lipstick-heart,
she stumbled out he was long gone

could he “save” her?

Scared, but still defiantly pleased.

On the table what he said he left.
She blind, disabled.
You might have seen her bumbling out

He was long gone.

Patricia Ann Brody is a poet, whose two books are American Desire (FLP 2009) and Dangerous to Know (Salmon, 2013) mental health professional, Also Brody’s a 2004 graduate of Marilyn Hacker’s and Barry Wallenstein’s life-changing Creative Writing/English Lit Graduate Program at CCNY. Her poems in this issue of BigCityLit were selected by Nicholas Johnson with whom Patricia shared a delight-filled, tender friendship, lit by Nick’s gorgeous poetry soul.  Nick’s life and work are a poem. Brody and husband Tom Kostro are parents of 3 grown children: Nick was a guest in our Wash Heights apartment and loved our family. Patricia’s daughter Katrina Kostro’s artwork and sonnets were often chosen by Nick and can be found in past issues of BCL.
RIP darling Nicky, Write on. And on.