Linda L Barton

A Buffet I Know Well  
                   -- New in 2009     

Pulling at thirty years 
Arkansas nights and the antique
Chasings of my youth
Winning big with the carved buffet
Dragons, leaded heavy glass windows
Clawed feet crawling
Sold my soul.

I could not see then
What is now but
Now I see now and
Then was so young.
My son is now that age
Living a life from that age
The age I was then
In Arkansas for a weekend
Looking for deals,
Absorbing fiddles with the first husband.

Later left the furniture to the divorce
To weather further time passes
The current husband trades
The ex husband a canoe
For this buffet
Stored in the damp garage of my memory.

                                                                     (continued at right)

It is an affair between men
I know well this exchange. 
I am left out now, not forgotten
The observer
As they lash the canoe- as only men can do.
Lashing large object atop hapless vehicles.
Is it in their DNA?
My son joins them.
Men, my men, laughing and lashing.

Buffet refinished sat piled with
Current husbands debris
Mittens, binoculars and maps.
                                                                                   And I think this too was part of my epoch
The letting go to hears fiddles, 
See dragons and
Capture lost canoes.

Another move and now,  
Second wife of first husband
Has given into the buffet’s charms
Keeping it alive and dry,
Until my son is of age.

The age of carrying furniture
That is far too heavy with
Tides of veneer
And the tales

yet to tell.

Fire Dance      
          -- Bhutan November 2000

The young boy  
Maybe seven                                      
In the dark,   
Held it tight
Tighter than I have ever been held
He led me through a small gate
We were crushed and
I worried for him
His size
I wonder why me
He wanted something from me
Not what I had expected
But to tell me to
Go slow
Be careful and watch for my life
His body shook and I knew
He feared for his  
I moved slowly  
He pulled me past the others
Another way  
He ran dragging my feet
Over craters and voices
After a lifetime   
He left me dangling like  
Wilted irises
Planted 
People swimming around me
Pushing, yelling in fire light    
He evaporated in darkness
To run through the burning wall
The Dance 
Our hands never met again 
The smell of smoke
Hangs like a skirt
Made of questions I cannot ask.

Reprinted from Sisters Singing:  Incantations, Blessings, Prayers, Art, Songs and sacred Stories by Women  
Carolyn Bright Flynn, Editor (Wild Girl Publishing). You may order Sisters Singing from www.sisterssinging.com.

Change The Locks Already

Someone broke in last night
Glued cottage cheese to
My thighs and behind
I cannot rid of it.

Someone broke in last night
Pulled at my scalp
Thankfully I fought her off.

Someone broke in last night
Water colored my teeth,
A most odd yellow.
`
Someone broke in last night
And made me
Get up five times
To pee. 

Someone broke in last night
Stuck hairs on my chin
Made of wire 
Which do not tickle.

Someone broke in last night
Left seven pairs of
Reading glasses
Throughout the house.

Someone broke in last night
And left Sudoko, Crosswords,  
Scrabble and jigsaw puzzles
As penance.

 Someone broke in last night
And stole my face off
The bathroom mirror
Replacing it with some beautiful crone.

Some one broke in last night
And whispered mysteries
In my ear 
Unraveling a silence.

Last night
So much stolen
So much changed.