From Ruth

Hi, Here are the last two of the five I am planning to submit to "Lyrical Iowa."  At least one of them I've put up on this site before, and maybe the other one, but since now I'm going to submit them to something, I want feedback.

The first is a truncated version of one I did last year.  Too many "the"s in it, but I'm not sure if I want to cut any of them.  The second poem is a terza rima, (also from last year,) which means it is in a specific form, so I can't make changes without substituting something with equal syllable count, etc.

The reason I chose these is that either they were under 20 lines or easy to cut to 20 lines.  Maybe not a good reason but that's the line limit for submissions.  After this you'll only see one poem a week.

Ashes

A cloud of smoke hovers above him; the cigarette's eye glows

at me when he breathes in and winks when he breathes out.

I don't need this evidence of his love. He survived war and famine

to cross a scrolling ocean and a rolling continent to become my father.

Sparks fall to the floor and he curses in a tongue that's all gasps

and clashing consonants. I fetch a heavy ashtray, cut-glass,

to set on the breakfast table. The sun filters through it like a prism;

phantoms sway on his white shirt like nightshade in the wind.

I pick a silvery coin from his jingling pocket; brown tobacco

covers it in flecks. I inhale the loamy smell of the leaf he carries

in a packet like an herbal amulet. Dizzy stripes, like prisoners wear,

slant through the blinds. My father lifts me to his shoulder.

This close, his eyes reveal a grief he's carried with him since the last war,

when his past smoldered to ashes. I'll grow tall in the light

of my new life; he'll shrink into shadows cast by the old world,

he'll become smoke in my lungs, dust in my throat.

But now my father lowers me to the linoleum by the oak icebox,

my gleaming dime gripped tight in my fist. He squeezes orange juice,

a bright miracle of the new world. I lift my glass and the cold liquid

slips down my throat, rich and sweet. The newspaper exhales as he folds it.

or The newspaper inhales when he opens it. or He opens the newspaper; it inhales.

...................................................................................................................................

   Holding On

July, the leaves are dense with cholorophyll,

a deep mid-summer green, and plums in hand

are sweet. My husband and I keep vigil:

We watch my swelling belly, firm and round,

a melon ripened while the fetus grows,

my sugared blood sustaining our shared bond.

My partner and I are forty and we know

the season soon will turn, descend to fall.

Now I want to feel the jutting elbows

and knees, blanketed in creamy wax, caul

encased and safe--away from the knock

at the worldly door--inside, behind snug walls.

The last time I'll be pregnant, I balk:

I'm five days overdue and culpable;

I've suspended earthly time, I sleepwalk...

A one way voyage through the birth canal--

our cleavage, breath from breath, will be final.