#denise low

[poetsandwriters]

Live jazz at El Fresco is one guy, electric plinks, until he turns off the switch, closes his eyes, and warbles a boy’s tenor, wood-flute tones, pure séance hymns from before Christians. Rowdies at the bar stop fighting and stare as seawater washes through the room, seeping through floorboards to serpent dens.

Denise Low, from “Saint Patrick’s Again”

[friendethan]

Two Gates by Denise Low

I look through glass and see a young woman of twenty, washing dishes, and the window turns into a painting. She is myself thirty years ago. She holds the same blue bowls and brass teapot I still own. I see her outline against lamplight; she knows only her side of the pane. The porch where I stand is empty. Sunlight fades. I hear water run in the sink as she lowers her head, blind to the future. She does not imagine I exist. I step forward for a better look and she dissolves into lumber and paint. A gate I passed through to the next life loses shape. Once more I stand squared into the present, among maple trees and scissor-tailed birds, in a garden, almost a mother to that faint, distant woman.