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C.M. Clark: Ismene Upstaged

March 29, 2013 by PBQ

Ismene of the bottlebrush tree, how long
can an eyebrow grow untweezed? What if
it’s left to curl and punk-jut
 
garden-random, scalp,
 
eardrum, cornea, liberated
as milkweed? How will you ever learn
the proper shape or coax of comb
 
to settle these tantrum hairs? At eleven,
this is gnosis: the wafers of initiates,
bitter gift to put tongue to, to find
 
browbone’s right trace, the latent surprise and sweep. Until
 
that first tug is made, maidenhair is sand, silk,
the sibillant outbreath splitting water
from dryland. This brown diadem,
 
lighter than oak leaves, what
 
final curve or line – snarl or question --
waits disguised? Still grumpy and attractively bedridden,
a roaring god beneath marble vein, still
 
covert.
 
I make a hobby of scanning brows for scars
like yours: graphite hashmarks, swift strokes presage
the capitulation to come, soon enough. For now,
 
incorporeal, fixed by a mother’s shadow some summer
after school lets out. Neither famous
nor tragic, you’ll blend in
 
well.

Filed Under: Contributors 86, Issue 86, Poetry, Poetry 86 Tagged With: C.M. Clark, Contributors 86, Poetry, Poetry 86

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