Tremors

Cammy Thomas

• Publisher: Four Way Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781945588938
• eBook ISBN: 9781954245044
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Thomas's short, musical poems make stops in the terrains of childhood, difficult and somewhat violent; middle life, with parents breaking down and children moving away into their own lives; and later life when memory falters but passion does not.

III.

Three White Horses

I forgot where we were

meeting tonight—

actually, I forgot

we were meeting at all

until you called.

I forgot your mother

had died. Or I knew

someone’s mother had.

Had you told me her story?

Was she the one

whose older sister

was a suicide?

Did she beat you,

or am I thinking

of someone else?

Coming to your house again,

I feel I’ve never been here.

How could I misplace

that bright green wall,

this windy road, the field

with three white horses?

Ladder

six rungs above the ground

night in heavy rain eager

to pull a clot of leaves

from a blocked downspout

sopped blinded

on my sixty-eighth birthday

in my old nightgown

slick aluminum ladder

climbing to the downspout

midair in the drench

my feet slipped off—

I went flying

caught myself gasp

slammed flat against

the flexing rungs

gutter cascading

spout still blocked

backed down

took the shining ladder

back to the garage

Dream of Two Dark Dresses

two dark dresses

are all that hang

in my closet

I don’t want to wear

either of them

one is woven with

a scene of desolation

everything broken

no one has tools

the ones in charge are liars

the fabric sags

its blacks slack

and wet as oil

the other dress is fear

dark without a color

you can’t move much

when you wear it

death seems so close

skirts like a cloud

of strangers’ exhalations

wake up wake up

pick something else

Tremors

—for Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Provincetown Harbor is on the other side of the houses

past the tall linden on Pearl Street

kshhhh kshh of vibrating leaves

next to a purple house

a small girl with a pinwheel is crying

when the wind comes the boats all face right

which way is east

sometimes I don’t care whether things matter

to anyone but me

the pink roses don’t care either

they grow for someone else’s pleasure

but they don’t know it

the girl’s mother is so mad

stop running in the street

she grabs her roughly—too roughly

weedy oyster-shell driveway

partial view of the unreachable

bay—dark pink hollyhocks—tremor in my hand makes writing hard

hhhhhhh in the leaves

the father untangles the girl

from her red-faced mother

leads her down the street still carrying her pinwheel

a pile of clamshells in the driveway

I’m drowning

the mother has vanished

we can never walk back the spent

peonies keep their green but their faces

are spikes now

Except For

I keep thinking about

my estranged other brother—

his fruit-choked garden,

rock shoulders, clear eyes—

even when he whispered

I’d better watch my back—

about how, except for my fear,

I would love to see him again.

Off the Job

just wanted to say

I don’t boss anymore

keeping kids safe

is so yesterday

no more birds

forbidden to fly

or fences containing

whatever goodbye

my stop-that voice

is out of gas

done crushing

done buckling up

now I’ll

be the wild

blame my bad behavior

on the lion’s breath

hot gr...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• I.
• II.
• III.
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author