when the dressmaker appears
After I summon mermaids,
they annoy me by not arriving,
and I concede I want grace more
beautiful than any icon or statue
possesses in a cathedral.
My grandfather, a warrior
in battles who once ate
sables in Russian forests,
asked me to join him for dinner
when he escaped the Gulag.
We drank the wind, toasted
drowned sailors in lost harbors,
where I concealed joy like a werewolf
hides lilies in his heart.
His servant, Yukio, shuffled
a deck of cards, performed a trick
with the four Aces, later offering
them as dessert. We laughed
like crocodiles pretending
they’re saints. The tide arrived, my
grandfather telling Yukio to bring
the strongbox. Open it, fisherman,
he said, and I did. Wax-sealed letters
inside. I’ve hidden these,
grandson, for years. Don’t read
them, but when the dressmaker
appears, your soul will whiten,
fears will disappear. Give
thanks by passing the strongbox
on to her. Then say hello to Grace.
they annoy me by not arriving,
and I concede I want grace more
beautiful than any icon or statue
possesses in a cathedral.
My grandfather, a warrior
in battles who once ate
sables in Russian forests,
asked me to join him for dinner
when he escaped the Gulag.
We drank the wind, toasted
drowned sailors in lost harbors,
where I concealed joy like a werewolf
hides lilies in his heart.
His servant, Yukio, shuffled
a deck of cards, performed a trick
with the four Aces, later offering
them as dessert. We laughed
like crocodiles pretending
they’re saints. The tide arrived, my
grandfather telling Yukio to bring
the strongbox. Open it, fisherman,
he said, and I did. Wax-sealed letters
inside. I’ve hidden these,
grandson, for years. Don’t read
them, but when the dressmaker
appears, your soul will whiten,
fears will disappear. Give
thanks by passing the strongbox
on to her. Then say hello to Grace.
David Spicer has had poems in Chiron Review, Poppy Road Review, Mocking Heart Review, Alcatraz, Gargoyle, Midnight Lane Boutique, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He is the author of Everybody Has a Story and four chapbooks, and is the former editor of raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books. The poem, When The Dressmaker Appears has been published in From the Limbs of a Pear Tree (Flutter Press) in late August of last year.
