Judith Skillman
Three Poems
Great Northern Fur Seal
Flaherty—young astronomer
to whom we come after sea horses,
octopi, anemones, jellyfish,
the hermit crab and Moray eel, otter
preening near its red rubber ball—
you remind me of my father Sid,
staring up after dark at the sky
as if it could free him from his own
sad news of living alone while married
to my mother. She the social butterfly,
he the eccentric physicist. Throat-
clearing, cleaning his glasses on his shirt,
staring with a homemade telescope
at eclipsing binaries. Your pronged tail
folded beneath you on a fake sea rock,
we watch as you polish one flipper
then the other, fur glistening beneath lights
of the Seattle harbor. This a Saturday
like any other, except—how explain
the depths and deckled edges
of the two party system—how make sense
of your pose as we round this corner
to find a monk-like almost-
person-animal-sea creature
in an attitude of beatification
observing, as it were, the last white clouds
cross a sky whose stars,
erased by sky glow, seem more holy
for their disappearance.
Lot’s Wife
~O Pillar of salt
erect prayer of halite
how come to these late years
without the two angels
begged by your husband
to stay
~two daughters
offered to men
who would harm child-virgins
The cities spread
in checkered burns
~O pillar of salt
left behind
by plump girls decked out
in finery
Say we are Sodom
we Gomorrah
we perceive temptation
Where is north
~where not south
~O cairn see our passage
from four years of yester night
changed into today
The Time to Ask Questions Has Passed
Sunset, and the rains are over. Stout birds sing.
There are no children here and none visit.
The body is its own quarry. An eye
turns inward, notes of Bach fly alone.
A contagious spring reigns in the garden.
Crescendo of purple clouds, lime green leaflets,
bawdy weather unsuited to the mood.
Soon, in the dark, the old depression
lifts. Leo Tolstoy’s Nikita
wakes in the sleigh beneath his master
to live twenty more years as laborer.
To measure with his steps how many straws
it takes to warm a horse in winter.
Three toes gone from each foot, still he walks.
—Submitted on 12/13/2020
Judith Skillman is the author of twenty collections, including Came Home to Winter, (Deerbrook Editions, 2019). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, Zyzzyva, Field, and other journals. Skillman is a faculty member at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle, Wash. Online at judithskillman.com.
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