| CAPRICCIO By Maureen Eppstein Capriccio for no reason Il capro, the goat on the hillsudden, unpredictable change, as of one’s mind hip-hobble, hip-hobble somersaults cartwheelssunlight on white daisies on the verge of a city street, a dusty sunflower a garden planted with whirligigs amethyst glass doorknob on a chalky white walla light and fanciful work of art inch-worms dangling on invisible threads from all the oaksprank, capricious action, harebrained escapade the fountain that children run throughthe cobbled paving on Ramona Street Mexican tiles on the risers of the stairs piled peppers at the Farmers’ Market folk tune playersthe valley oak next door the alley behind the house the cops on bicycles the owl and the pussycatthe smile of the old man I pass on the wooden bench every morning on my way to work and every evening when I come home The Keeper of FingernailsI am a stick falling from the moon. Over the purple forest the gargoyle snatches me in his teeth and I shatter into twenty pieces. Each piece glitters with shards of mirror from the bathrooms in all the row houses of London where the grimy bricks hide the hippopotamuses of anger and slime that grovel under the back steps and growl when the feather duster flicks her skirts and flaunts the scarlet of her plumes that fly up and wallop the ponderous bank building on the corner of the hypotenuse which is not square but a shape dimly perceived, like the shape-shifters of ancient tales, who come now as crabs marching in columns to the beat of a tom-tom that plays itself with its claw sculpted out of dung tapping nails into potato heads who smile with the knowledge that no nourishment worth having derives from the mountaintop where the rock sends smoke signals to the keeper of fingernails saying now is the time to act, before the splinters of the smashed self have time to regroup and grow larger and more yellow and bury the soul in a cairn of polite conversation, while dogs of forgetting sniff out the putrid intestines of the correct police and scatter them across the polished floor of the bank building where a man with tight mouth and trim suit stands fingering his mustache, not seeing his garments melting into chocolate which the hippopotamuses lick and slurp until the little man is naked and behind him I can see the plywood and wires that prop him up. Gray StonesGray stones roll in slow procession down a gray street, empty except for a gray cat that rubs its back against a post. Tethered to the stones and shading them are rigid canopies in soft-bright colors.Cat sits, head to one side, watching. A steady rumble the only sound untilcat bats at a stone which clonks against the stone in front a ricochet a piling up a grinding to a halt.Released, the pastel banners twirl about each other, blue with butter yellow, lavender around mint green, a silky pattern dancing in the sky.Beside the silent stones cat bends to lick a paw. The Message ComesA thread the color of violets almost forgotten in my handyesterday footprints along the beach falling tidewater purple surfacea few more days rain winter darkmy hands empty my silence a language without words About the Author: Maureen Eppstein has three poetry collections: Earthward (Finishing Line Press), Rogue Wave at Glass Beach (March Street Press) and Quickening (March Street Press). Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Aesthetica, Basalt, Calyx, Ginosko, Poecology, Sand Hill Review, and Written River, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand, she now lives on the Mendocino Coast of California. Her website is http://www.maureen-eppstein.com | |