Sartorial Ghazal
Please don’t ask if you can wear my black pants.
I adore you but won’t share my black pants.
Too often, the world requires armor.
With red lipstick and teased hair, my black pants.
Rip my shirt off, let the buttons pop. Break
my bra’s thin clasp, but don’t tear my black pants.
The spell’s broken, you say. You want to go
home to your marriage. Beware my black pants.
Dead sea mud smoothes and wakes my skin. Like a
facial for my derriere—my black pants.
Shy days demand baggy, ankle-length skirts.
When I want people to stare, my black pants.
Yearly cull of clothes too small, too worn, no
longer loved. I always spare my black pants.
Boxers dangling from a lampshade. Tangled
with your jeans under the chair, my black pants.
You sew carefully, aware you’ll win my
devotion if you repair my black pants.
Older, Stone’s learned less is so much more.
Sexier than my ass, bare—my black pants.
Romantic Ghazal
To shared values, add a dash of romance.
Drape commitment in a sash of romance.
One suitor is an heir. One writes songs. Should
she choose the dazzle of cash? Of romance?
After kids, fatigue, and disappointment,
bright as spring’s first bird—a flash of romance.
He journeyed from flower shop to bar to
religion, spurred by the lash of romance.
Room strewn with empty wine bottles, torn clothes,
dead roses, condoms—the trash of romance.
Come here. Now go away. Sharp words. Kisses.
Her neck aches from the whiplash of romance.
When bills and boredom dampen ardor, pull
happy memories from the cache of romance.
A slinky dress, a rhinestone crown. Eyes rimmed
with Smoke. On each wrist, a splash of Romance.
Let stubborn shoots push through cracks in stone. Let
nascent love rise from the ash of romance.
Dark Ghazal
She snuffs all the candles to find the dark.
The god used golden cords to bind the dark.
Did Cleopatra suffer when she felt
the final threads of self unwind, the dark
replacing everything? Rumi plucked gems
from the divine, Baudelaire mined the dark.
Black cats are chosen last. The Horned God morphed
to devil when some faiths aligned the dark
with evil instead of mystery. In
Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, light defined the dark.
Teens say, That’s so extra! Adults say, free gift.
When the astronomer went blind, the dark
held memories of stars. Each night, the girl
would brush her mother’s thick hair, wind the dark
strands into a bun. The boy’s aunt taught him
to keep secrets and not to mind the dark.
The sun spent its last oranges and pinks.
Night descended while they dined, the dark
obscuring faces and plates. The bomber
mailed police a confession signed The Dark
Avenger. Do dying patients reach for
a nurse or toward some world behind the dark?
Some subjects won’t be caged by words. Do you
really think, Stone, that you’ve enshrined the dark?
Counterpoints
The sky so blue before the airplanes hit.
Words of praise can land where bullets miss.
Shadows come to life from lamps we lit.
The same lips that curse can also kiss.
Words of praise can land where bullets miss.
Hate’s hidden under fear but never gone.
The same lips that curse can also kiss.
Too quickly a new darkness follows dawn.
Hate’s hidden under fear but never gone.
When one shoe thuds, we know what’s coming soon.
Too quickly a new darkness follows dawn.
Clouds can eclipse even the brightest moon.
When one shoe falls, we know what’s coming soon.
Find joy in the spaces in between.
Clouds can eclipse even the brightest moon.
Past disappointments set up every scene.
Find joy in the spaces in between
the losses. Stacked up like dirty plates,
past disappointments set up every scene.
Still, hope is power that no pain negates.
Although losses stack up like dirty plates,
and shadows come to life from lamps we lit,
hope is power, and no pain negates
the sky—so blue before the airplanes hit.
The Objects of My Adolescence
Torn fishnets, hand-drawn Ramones shirt,
mohawked Barbie head
stuck on a stick—are they
in a landfill somewhere, slimy
with food scraps, trapped next to
charm bracelets and hair clips
from the preppy girls who taunted me,
or are they mixed with the recliners
and wine glasses of parents
whose suburban comforts we scorned?
Before people break down and blend together,
our possessions precede us. A garbage dump,
and not our country, is the true melting pot,
receptacle for refuse of movie stars and janitors,
boxes labeled in myriad languages,
unimportant trash joined with once-loved
mementos of shed selves,
4.9 lbs. per person, per day,
decomposing slowly, if at all,
except for the few treasures we save
to pass along, my spiked bracelets
safe for now from this sad fate,
sharp and shiny on my daughter’s arm.
Alison Stone has published nine full-length collections, including Informed (NYQ Books, 2024), To See What Rises (CW Books, 2023), and Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020). She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize, New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award, and The Lyric’s Lyric Prize. Her websites: www.stonepoetry.org and www.stonetarot.com.