The Disfiguring

Looking is all its good for
This smooth, flat kitten foot
Rabbit’s paw good luck charm
You look and don’t touch
No, please, don’t touch

It is childish but seasoned
Dappled and coarse
Its good enough
It will do for you
Don’t feign shame
You wear it well

Do you have to feel
To go against my grain
Your vigorous shoving hands
Sanding and sawing
Don’t feign consideration
This is all of you

I wish it was of me too
I drive myself to that end
But I confess I am elsewhere
Mine is a different softness
Not the smooth of satin,
but cushion of tenderness
The gentle softness of giving

What have I done for you
Today or ever in life
This is one thing
But it wouldn’t satisfy me
If I were keeping score
Which I’m not.

The Liberty of Love

I drank wine with my lunch today
because you were gone.
I had cioppino full of clams and mussels
the fishy taste that you despise.
I sat in silence without leaving my chair
and ate every drop
I didn’t have to share
because you were gone.

I heard a song that I used to love
so I cranked it up and danced
a silly dance with no one to watch me
because you were gone,
and I didn’t care if the neighbors heard.
I watched that show that drives you crazy
and I laughed and laughed
at every obnoxious word.

I got a note from a friend
that his lover’s gone for good,
he was crying and upset
and a part of me sort of understood,
and I told him I’d be praying for him
and he knows I really am
because you were gone
so in silence, I really can.

And now I know that when you come home
and do the things you’ve always done,
I may wish to dance
or eat dinner alone
but I don’t really wish you forever gone.
I don’t want to find myself broken like that.
When you are gone,
I thank God you’ll come back.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2007

Haiku

They fight like bandits
wrestling over trinkets
and who reigns supreme.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2007

What a Flame it Makes

Where is the gall
that lets you execute your
disdain on me
like a guillotine
a judge’s mallet
looking at me through your ivory glass
telling the world that I am brass
and all the while
You kiss me like your meat
You coddle me with notions

I have no delusions
I know who greets my morning
I know what I behold
in slow motion odium
I see the sagging double you
hiding loosely in folds of fabric
and the hips agreeing with
the stretched out elastic
that strains to cover them
make them fit
perceptions and corduroys alike

No, maman, it is not flaunting
that your refined taste abhors
it is apathy
for you,
for the men -
your constant suspects
accused of staring,
and for myself -
I am finished caring

I had a day in the sun
when your contempt would have been just
I have been the sparkle-lust
This is altogether different
I am older
My passions molder
in a sess of empty eyes
and why try’s

Suspect yourself
discover what you’re hiding
covet someone else’s privacy
invade the rights of number two
you.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2007

Don't force it

Maybe I could just sleep
While the words wash over me
Internal poetry
The feelings just get swallowed
sucked back down
sponged up
maybe I don’t need a pen
to set it all in order
line it up
put it in its place
for once and finally
I told you I was too tired
too somnolent to speak
exhausted by silence
drained into quiet
Perhaps I don’t need to write it
it is there and obvious
apparent to me
and easier to feel
than to say, to repeat
in words and their limits
Come closer and I’ll whisper it
sing it to you in a minor key
Or stick it like a shiv
under your rib
so you can feel it
deeply
and see what words come to you
Beautiful and poetic
or seeping and weeping
I chuckle seedily
in my unfit sheets
I am sleeping
I don’t need to write it
I only need to sleep
through the sensations
and the lack of
orations
I am a drowsy silent poet
and you are an unworthy audience

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2007