artwork: ralph murreAN INVENTORY OF LOST THINGS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .after Linda Pastan
by Karla Huston
Of course the Dodo bird, not
for its stupidity, the way it blundered
into Portuguese clubs
and into the jaws of dogs
but for its innocence, because
I understand blind trust.
And I choose Lot’s Wife,
for her lack of faith, the yearning
for what she could not lose,
even as she has survived,
nameless
and without a face.
I choose Gina Lollobrigida,
ooh la la, Italian vamp, the doll
my mother’s grandmother
made, her yarn curls
and rag legs longer
and thinner than hunger and fear.
From an inventory of lost things,
I choose November,
its chilly memos about leaving
written in the stitching
of last geese, the absence
of kindness, winter’s misery
in the face of all that coming
light. I choose you
and the circling trains, the ones
that never arrive, passengers turning
to face the place they came from
where they once belonged.
~ previously published in Babel Fruit and Wisconsin People and Ideas
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .after Linda Pastan
by Karla Huston
Of course the Dodo bird, not
for its stupidity, the way it blundered
into Portuguese clubs
and into the jaws of dogs
but for its innocence, because
I understand blind trust.
And I choose Lot’s Wife,
for her lack of faith, the yearning
for what she could not lose,
even as she has survived,
nameless
and without a face.
I choose Gina Lollobrigida,
ooh la la, Italian vamp, the doll
my mother’s grandmother
made, her yarn curls
and rag legs longer
and thinner than hunger and fear.
From an inventory of lost things,
I choose November,
its chilly memos about leaving
written in the stitching
of last geese, the absence
of kindness, winter’s misery
in the face of all that coming
light. I choose you
and the circling trains, the ones
that never arrive, passengers turning
to face the place they came from
where they once belonged.
~ previously published in Babel Fruit and Wisconsin People and Ideas
