Day-Old Bargain
By Hilda Raz
Bargain tarts, raspberry, goose,
he said, don't write about that
surgery, women who have hacked off write
all parts and natures of women
who lose food in the bottom parts
of refrigerators, onions, scallions,
sour tomatoes, tiny cocktail weenies
lost in the airless dark write
When you give over your breast
to cancer, for God's sake don't
write about it.
Write about silliness, holding hands
in sandboxes, small girls playing fudge-
and-find-me-alley-tag at dusk, Rochester,
state of pubescent, New Yorka roonie.
...day I learned to drive aimed car
at horizon and floored it. Got there.
God in color, no cable, firsthand.
Going and coming back I thought I'd live.
Not much for visions, still at sink soaking
pinkies in sweetalmond suds, I heard Mom.
Come on home, she said. Scared the witless bejeebies
out of me. Next day I opted for surgery.
Cut that mama off and saved my life.
Big daddy surgeon said right on the mark, sweet honey.
It was done.
He's got a girlfriend works at his office, don't you know,
she thinks he's licorice stick swinger. I caught them
hugging in the mimeo room. Ain't nothing to it, he said,
rolling his cup of a palm over the scar. Mmmmmm-mmmmm,
this hillock is a sweet raisin, roll over baby, pour me out.
Okeydokey.
What came next in the woods, woolly dark trees
don't give a fudge if what's hugging them hard
dents in two places. I hang on for dear life.
Filled pockets with seedpods, got bulbs
I shoehorned into clay pots for life's sake.
Nevertheless the disc shone hard, or didn't.
Copyright Credit: Hilda Raz. "Day-Old Bargain" from Divine Honors copyright © 1997 by Hilda Raz and reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Source: Divine Honors (Wesleyan University Press, 1997)