{"id":32,"date":"1998-04-05T00:28:36","date_gmt":"1998-04-05T04:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greasymonkey.net\/MonkeyBLOG\/?p=32"},"modified":"2008-07-05T00:31:42","modified_gmt":"2008-07-05T04:31:42","slug":"janet-i-buck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/?p=32","title":{"rendered":"Janet I. Buck"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artichokes<\/strong><\/p>\n

All the years of pressure cookers
\nrocking on the stove.
\nMy belly full of finding ways
\nto dance around your piercing eyes
\nthat rested like a robin’s eggs
\non fences leaning in the dawn.
\nMoments split like stale nuts
\nyour daughters always gathered up
\nand tried so very hard to save.
\nThe cookie dough we made from scratch
\nyour mouth would burn when
\nsomething wasn’t done your way.<\/p>\n

Anger wasn’t dialogue
\nor teeter totters working hard.
\nThe back and forth of sanding down
\nthe lonely nights we spent
\ntogether in our bed.
\nBack to very bitter back
\nlike bookends on a naked shelf.
\nNothing there to hold our dreams
\nlike photos with a broken frame.<\/p>\n

Artichokes and arguments.
\nLove and steaks were never right.
\nI trimmed the thorns and
\ncooked the leaves in bitter wine
\nuntil my life was mush.
\nAnd when the green of little girls
\nwas hauled away like
\nwrecks of cars beside the road,
\nI threw the leaves in garbage cans.
\nI had to save my soul.<\/p>\n

The Bruise<\/strong><\/p>\n

Looking back like dandruff
\nfalling on my sleeve,
\nI wonder how I smiled.
\nTire tracks upon the floor
\nfrom gurneys rolling sterile halls.
\nYet another surgery that left
\nits stripes like badges on a uniform
\nI’d rather not have worn.
\nCotton threads of bathroom towels.
\nMy bandages in times of war.
\nDenial’s fluff I raised like flags.
\nTheir terry flesh the draperies
\nI wrapped around the storm.<\/p>\n

A stump was candor’s ugly face
\nlike roaches climbing up the walls.
\nIts wrinkles etched. Machete eyes
\nthat felled my dreams like dominos
\nor winter tombs upon the grass
\nthat strike at night and smash the dawn.
\nThe silent eyes that said enough.
\nLike bruises on potato skins
\nthat relegate remaining flesh
\nto open mouths of garbage cans
\nthat stay below the kitchen sink.<\/p>\n

Letting someone touch me there
\nwas overheated coffee mugs I should
\nhave known would burn my tongue.
\nGarlic pushing through a press,
\nits presence stronger, losing form.
\nI guess I smiled to dig a moat
\naround the walls I couldn’t climb.<\/p>\n

The Chill<\/strong><\/p>\n

In honesty, it started in a pile of weeds.
\nThe blasphemy of plastic limbs
\nthat laid like toothpicks on the floor
\nI needed them to walk to school.
\nTo make a bed I hated so
\nsince it would promise nakedness
\nlike flames that burn a candle
\nto the quick and leave it there to cool.
\nThe bathroom mirror. Its slippery glass.
\nI couldn’t take the single shoes
\nthat didn’t have a foot to match
\nand break its shallow frame.
\nI wanted to. I needed to.
\nBut there were rules that certain things
\nwould never see the sun.<\/p>\n

The shower door. Its hinges weak.
\nFrom all the years of grabbing glasses
\nfilled with wine to dull the pain
\nand steady me in raging waves of doubt.
\nLike castor oil or medicine I had to take
\nand swallowed down like bumble bees
\nthat landed where they shouldn’t go.
\nThe sting was there. My throat was raw.
\nFrom sucking air of stoic smiles
\nthat chilled me to the missing bones.
\nIf you wonder why I sleep
\nbeneath a quilt in summertime,
\nyou haven’t turned your head to look
\nbeneath the bed of scars.<\/p>\n

by Janet I. Buck<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artichokes All the years of pressure cookers rocking on the stove. My belly full of finding ways to dance around your piercing eyes that rested like a robin’s eggs on fences leaning in the dawn. Moments split like stale nuts your daughters always gathered up and tried so very hard to save. The cookie dough … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Janet I. Buck”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":590,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7SmAb-w","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/590"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fosterjohnson.com\/POETRY\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}