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Three Poems Julia Cohen

Combs Comb the chrysalis from your beard to fasten the milkweed Rather your eyes be matted with Queen Ann's lace than pill blisters scatter the sink We hesitate and falter Have tried to bathe in a sink instead of the lake I have not given in completely am not yet preserving only the land The rest of it or the rest Which is the false stillness of matter Hold these atoms for me while I swipe the last dish from the sink We take bird dishes to the woods and paint them hanging from trees We will break the pattern sob The only dangerous beard belongs to the dead Comb out haphazard need When we climb out of the flowerpot our roots are numb for the first six steps When You Press a Button on My Side, a Tall Door Opens My youth goes to the matinee on Saturday afternoons Tactic cards add little to the otherwise clean and elegant game Take advantage of what looks up with interest and waits Little figures of prospects dry with too much civility Fingernails buffed by handguns primp into the carriage window Design a problem practice can take care of A barbeque war and heritage mining sessions Obedience since we entered the gun You press for a provocative portrayal of remorse We hope to find the tall door framing a recovery cursed with artwork Submissive grief noticed by a curtsey And with no objection the carriage drove off She Is Humanly Plain As touch I creep around the wild geese and take to distance with no such safety roof There are no guidelines for your unreachable beard Your cap keeps rolling to my corner tree and I hold it here though you refuse to retrieve She is humanly plain and you let her in She takes to distract with veins growing the wrong way A subject you could not mention before me The distance choir and anchors hanging from two chins I train only to request what can be given The geese sleep in dried grass below my tree-house and keep one gosling in your cap □