Alice and the Chinese Jar 3

Below are three additional poems from the recent Twitter poetry party. All of the prompts came from Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems by Maureen Doallas.

By @mmerubies, @lauraboggess, @llbarkat, @loveLifeLitGod, @Dancinbutterfly, @doallas and @jejpoet. Edited by @gyoung9751

The line held too taut

The line snaps
because I hold it too tight;
life’s reel turns back
and loops as it did
the day we said goodbye.
Pieces break off, shatter; they
get lost along the way, not
to be found until year later
when I glue them together
to make a blue vase.
Sometimes they can
never be found again.

The mermaid breathes

Like a mermaid, she is neither this
nor that, only half-become,
of two natures warring, in need
of both water and air. If she
could breathe under water, like
a silver fish or a mermaid,
would she need no other elixir?

But her need for air reels her in,
like a pulley taut, back to her humanity,
and to his; she carries too a thread
sewing the silver fish into necklaces
and wings, reeling in the thread;
turning and dipping like fins all
out of breath for her lover.

Does she wait for the mermaids,
the silver fish, the night pulled taut?
Somehow she learns to breathe.
Satisfied she turns:
You’ll learn, she says,
to let your lover go
to breathe upon the hills.

And the breaths will knock
at the broom tree, tie it in circles
against the falling night,
a passing touch, like an elixir
from a Chinese jar,
each breath a vapor
disappearing in the tide.

Give me your fins, she says.
You cannot breathe like that,
on dry ground. Give up your fins,
and I will hand you my wings,
I will restore what’s lost
with lover’s passing
if you will only leave me alone.

The line pulled taut again

Nothing is lost;
it just reloops
as life’s reel
has a way
of continuously
starting over
but in doing so
new twists and
turns are added.
Reel in the thread,
pull it taut,
make of it
circles tying
heart to heart.

And I laugh
while it spirals,
and the circles
fill my eyes
until I look
drastic
cartoon-crazy
unhinged and
vacant.
I skim the
surface of
love’s voice,
calling.