Plague Season
There is a doom that drapes the land,
sours birdsong, emits an acrid tension—
even the hills bare their teeth at one another.
Some eras are like that. Still, there must
needs be a cleft or yawn in Ruin’s grim face
that a ray squeezes through. Surely, even
the Iron Age saw fingers of sunlight
spilling from darkly dappled clouds
to scratch the tops of birches, willows,
alders, and pines. Surely the Celts rested
in meadows, basked, relaxed their tug,
push, lug, roll of boulders. Indeed they
wiped spilled mead from their beards,
chanted canticles to Morrigan or Danu or
the Hound of Ulster before their circles
were absolute. This thought does not make
palatable wine turned to vinegar, mend
civility’s broken wrist. It does remind:
both rose and rue bloom then wilt.
Moonlight doesn’t die. It hides.
If Pierre Auguste Renoir Were to Be My Father
I’ll be one of the Girls
Reading in a Garden
Wear elaborate hats
dresses the color of sunshine
Skin translucent
Sit still, silent in his studio
until my giggles escape, distract him
He’ll spread his arms
Invite me into his lap
Stroke my hair
Call me Babette
The eyes of the most beautiful faces
are always slightly dissimilar, he’ll say,
The petals of a flower are never identical
He’ll send me to the market for
oranges
peaches
pastries
I’ll carry them home in loosely woven
burlap bags
(add wisteria cut from our garden)
place them on a tray
in no particular order
He’ll admire their natural symmetry
Tell me You have a gift
because I’m his daughter
And because I’m his daughter
I will have a gift
(some small part of him)
I will know life
without outline
action set in motion
by its subject
an absence of black
in the shadows
When his hands tire, my small fingers
will massage the meat of his
aching palms
Get lost there
Tell his fortune
Tell his fortune
Tell his fortune
In later years, I’ll fasten to his wrist
with silken ribbons, brushes
he can no longer hold
For now, I’ll kiss each knotted knuckle
Heal him
When he complains about losing
the light
carries me to bed
in his beard I’ll smell turpentine
tobacco
impasto
pastis
look up at the painted stars on the ceiling
Call him Papá
Close my eyes
Dream in color
He will never ask me
why the cat
has red paint on his whiskers
I will never tell him
I wonder how it would be
if Monsieur Monet were my father
elizabeth iannaci is a widely published and anthologized, Los Angeles-based poet. She earned her MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts and currently serves as co-director of the VCP L.A. Poets. Elizabeth has appeared at countless venues in the U.S., Slovenia, Poland, Istanbul and Paris, France. Her latest chapbook is The Virgin Turtle Light Show (Latitude 34 Press). She identifies as partially sighted, which accounts for her preference for Paisley over Polka Dots.