Verdad Magazine Volume 27
Fall 2019, Volume 27
Poetry by Deborah Allbritain
Vespers
It’s as if there never was a tipping point,
mirror-shatter,
canopy bed with drawn curtains.
As if there was never a forest-acre,
a prince framed inside the winter trees, blue
eyeshadow sky. As if birds never fell through the center
of mums. What we thought was love,
turned mimic, turned
trickster-owl ironic: flammable, tedium, Drakkar Noir,
white cake. What we thought
was hive, sweet machinery, was television thrum,
wolfhounds every time I opened my
mouth, Anne Boleyn in the Tower.
Fairy Tale
The Kingdom, sieged and fallen,
relies only on itself now, birds
fall head first
into the center of mums, April
moves towards
the color
of calamity, even the rats sense it.
The castle, a fortress muted,
acts like nothing is wrong.
Look at the couch
pillows, layered like raspberry
cake for high tea.
He is not
coming back to the Kingdom
of make believe.
There was a tipping point
and now there’s
no one
to answer to, only the cold’s
grit, bulb
of the Queen’s frown.
And the King dethroned,
rode off on a glass
horse, knowing
what was pillaged
never returns. At vespers,
the grey entourage
of monks, lanterns spilling
chiffon
yellow through old
pines ghost spines, tired
Queen: No one is coming.
Why You Try Starving
The first time you see him with his new wife
you Google ways to starve.
Begin with the baby food diet.
If puree doesn’t agree,
there’s the one created by the French,
water, juice, pears.
Pretend to eat your food, hold a loaded
spoonful near your mouth. Set it down.
As a last resort there’s the five-bite plan.
Coffee, allowed.
When you dine out, say vegetarian.
It will make things easier.
View your back as blade, bird body begging
the earth to hold it.
What will they do with you,
withdrawing into empty folds, raggedy sleeves.
your bare foot dragging a church bell.
Broke
Here’s how I
sip my coffee in the garden,
watch orioles
feed on orange slices—
silence.
Sit in the kitchen,
alstroemeria summer on the table,
window seat pillow and one
blue coaster—silence.
Drive into town for merlot
jasmine reek and no stomach
for the radio silence.
Late bath with
moonlight through bamboo, the night’s
reading finished, curled
in the king-sized abyss—
silence.
Café Busto
How objects he’s left behind have stopped their claiming,
the purge of toasters, of elk heads, rattling manifolds,
becoming your assent. Behind the garage shelves, one hundred
golf clubs, boxed antelope socks and twenty-two cans
of Café Busto, which the gods never spoke to you about,
except to say look at the world now that you’ve stepped
toward it. Even the little barn windows twinkling this garage
door want to see your reflection, somewhat radiant, work gloved
and wielding the last of his everything across the floor.
October night-chill gliding in, the dog sprawled over his
mother’s two throw rugs like a small horse, tilted moon spread
across the territories, and the sweat of your labor becomes rain.
BIO: Deborah Allbritain lives in San Diego, California. Her poem, “Sorrow I Will Lead You Out Somewhere,” was chosen for the Patricia Dobler Poetry Prize in 2017. Publications include: The Greensboro Review, Spoon River Poetry, The Madison Review and B O D Y Literature, and upcoming in The Dunes Review and The Nashville Review.