Joanne Monte Poems

The river below us:
nitrogen, phosphorous, petrochemicals,
dioxin from the paper mills,
a rich buffet of metals digested
...

Entering the garden,
I notice the rhododendron,
the platinum pearl, that had displaced
the unwanted vines of bittersweet
...

(a.m.) the city
was split by lightning,
stripped down to bone, and tortured,
its flesh lashed by flames…
...

An ordinary morning―
awakening to nothing but daylight
prodding through the eggshell-tinted blinds
and the warm quilts to be tossed back
...

I

This morning I thought how easy
it must have been for you
...

in a village
soldiers have hunted,
borne behind doors
that have been kicked open
...

Today the drapes, for once,
have been drawn and, at last,
the sun has lit up the pine-dark interiors
of that day you poured me wine at supper,
...

You stand on the porch
unaware of the woman you are,
the woman in quandary, the woman
from whom you must step away
...

from the beginning,
was meant to douse the darkness
as it did then in that year;
...

The earth, its flesh scarred for life,
cut open by one nation,
the land for which we fought,
...