Ramshackle Review

Lisa Zaran:
Two Poems

Punishment

When using, you are not the same.

That sublimity of an altered state,
you are not the same.

Do not talk to me about faith or
the hierarchy of trust. Do not bring
the slow jibes of your bright desire
into my house of sorrow.

I'll lock all my windows.
I'll bust all the light bulbs.
I won't recognize your voice
calling mother through the door.


Drapery

Compare time to a mother's love
and there is no comparison. Who would
connive in refined despair ten different
ways to forget yet shake, frail and rattled,
in their bed, fall backwards into sleep
and drown in their jet bloodied dreams?

I will never say, I used to know him.
I will always admit to loving you fully,
not because you are my child, but because
you will always be my child, though you've
outgrown me by almost half a foot and sometimes
I stammer when I look at you.

You have, after all, grown up, past childhood
and a mother's make-it-better kiss. I, too, have
had my follies, my homesick way of dealing
with things. I know I view things from my heart
and not my reason. And so, for that reason,
you can roll your eyes and slam every door

but you can not, you absolutely may not
harm yourself in front of my eyes. I forbid it.

Lisa Zaran is an American poet and the author of six collections including The Blondes Lay Content and the sometimes girl, the latter of which was the focus of a year long translation course in Germany.  Selections from her books have been translated into over 8 languages.  She is an avid speaker at local coffee houses and not so local colleges, founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices, a journal of poetry, as well as a mother of two adult children.  Current work can be found at Juked, Sparkbright, The Tower Journal, Flutter, Concelebratory Shoehorn Review, Kritya, Gloom Cupboard, Best of the Web 2010, Nomad's Choir Poetry Journal and others.  She lives in Arizona.