ANDRENA ZAWINSKI

1. From the hospital
A woman’s bathing is a pure and simple act,
rounding the soft silky slip of soap
from hand to hand. Somewhere else
this little bump could be the first pick
of summer grapes, a sweet round
of butterscotch, marble in the pocket, found
pearl. The first day of Winter starts here
at the cradled underarm where nightmares rise.
Rootless at her emptied bed, I sit head bent
flushed pink as her carnations
at the frosted glass in the gray haze
promise of sun before dawn.

Under the light, the surgeon’s scalpel shines
life along its next course.
Only the whisper of skirts fluttering legs, only
the chatter of cups off center on trays, soles
tremolo with floor announce
the coming clamor of a new day. This
is where the mad are housed,
those of us who wait.

2. From the kitchen
I wear rhinestones and sunglasses posed
with my cigarette before another morning.
Frozen faced at her kitchen window, I forget
the perfect half scoop of sugar and lemon squeeze
for breakfast tea, forget whether I drove
or walked the flurried street gusting lost
ghosts unleashed in a dance of new cold.
Window sitting is a pure and simple act.
Below the train repeats last night’s long
blue note lost in repercussion of wheels
grinding steel. The city’s gaudy crown
bobs up in variegated tourmaline and silver,
and I am driven to the river’s edge.

Haloed in highway light I walk onto the dock,
Curse vertigo and the icy insomniac moon.
The stuff of poems paces round her imagined
sleeping bed, waiting to wake, making night
right. A boy blows bagpipes at the murky bank,
breaks the morning air. I check my breast,
convince myself I’m not the only mad one here.

Andrena Zawinski, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, now lives and teaches writing at Laney Community College in Oakland, California. Her full collection is Traveling in Reflected Light (Pig Iron Press). Her print and online chapbooks include Zawinski's Greatest Hits 1991-2001, which is part of the Pudding House archival and invitational series, and Elegies for My Mother, (The Pittsburgh Quarterly and Autumn House Press). Zawinski's poetry has appeared widely online and in print. She is Features Editor for PoetryMagazine.com (www.poetrymagazine.com/zawinski).