B.Z. Niditch
Mme. Aupick's Boy
A dead butterfly
for Charles,
at noon,
on a blood-stained tray,
two hundred minutes pass,
the voices of women,
mutilation of letters
from my step-mother,
your hand rests
on my beating heart
to be born
like caterpillars,
rotten Paris roads
navigated in shoes
bought by my father
with no thank you,
a terrain of boundless shadows,
ashes of madness,
then, the right phrase
for a disquieted child,
tongue-tied, but obedient
to grammar,
whipped by God’s rigidity
on the muscle
of obdurate appearances,
the formal heavens
turn black,
wishing for Autumn
to be a shore
without reason,
distinguishing pettiness
out of non-ripened fruit
in the domestic shrine,
writing tiny diary notes
on a rubble battlefield,
finding a coin
buying cabbages,
then, walking icy streets
on a gorgeous Fall day.
I cannot forget
the shirt you let
the maid iron
on the refreshening floors,
my forehead hurts
and I, wanting to grow
a mustache,
to tease step-mother
as she gives me grapes
on a silver tray,
look to the Medusa
at this untellable moment
with a convulsion to write,
and steal her bracelet
just for the hell
of this Sunday morning,
then going to the orchard
with the maid
who likes me
to remove my shirt
and take away
her breath.
Page(s) 9-10
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The