89
The vase of tower fragments and his mother’s
last dress made ashes the wind blows loose
How the rain reaches into the winter ground
and warms and turns the grasses loose
Walk on your knees says the guard to his father
Give me a name and I’ll turn you loose
The harbormaster’s hands in the morning
on the knots the night tides tried to pull loose
The peony petals pressed in round bud
then unfolding Your shirt’s pink Then falling loose
How the years found what she held so tightly
and took it Prying her fingers loose
Left in the tree he passed every day
A man The tatters of his clothes flapping loose
The smallness of the barbarians’ airplanes
after the emperor’s airplanes let loose
How he sat coughing shards of his nation’s hatred
How she wanted to keep him and he said Turn me loose
The meadow paddock by the intransigent
sea broken open and the horses run loose
She’s remembering your way with her bindings
Yrs bridled How you tighten How you cut them loose
Suzanne Gardinier is the author most recently of Iridium and Selected Poems, Dialogue
with the Archipelago, and Today: 101 Ghazals. She teaches at Sarah
Lawrence College and lives in Manhattan.
