By Sharon Coleman
she shed words like her sister’s hand-me-down anger mis-sewn dress
she folded into slow july streams, tall dry grasses over warm granite
of a coast they were moved up and down too many times she slept
where the first story was hammered into the second across
a threshold nailed shut the new music of those years
was sadder than the old she’d sit in her grandmother’s wooden chair
mouth words blackberry thorns ripe fig’s skin raw lemon
she sat spine straight in those years the muscles inside
her thighs grew taut stomach toughened contour awoke in her face
*
she held the needle over a spinning record poised to scratch or play
she re-played mustard jars her sister threw, and butter knives against
another new home as old as it was her sister tried to settle
sanded the floors of the first story the second hovered beyond them
when the stone fireplace grew to the ceiling her sister walked into flames
their father pulled her out long hair smoldering small flames
at the edges of her blouse wetness straightened waves of their hair
the sisters took turns on the kitchen stool their mother took
a long comb, pointed scissors evened them out in ways her mother could
*
in those years radios buzzed flat seventies’ songs lodged like fallout
at the back of her throat records her sister had brought home, left
when her sister left she listened to coastal winds that coursed through
a gap in the hills, eddied in her ears she pulled her hair
down over them over warm cave walls vibrating bone
she took to music older than grandmother’s wooden chair her mother
hummed notes simply without words cut squash and tomatoes
took out mozart and satie whose flaking covers smelled of acid and earth
whose music wrapped in patterns her spine branched into sound
*
she moved her bed and unread books books her sister sent
to the story above a crate of old music stashed behind
her grandmother’s chair she sat away from the geiger counters of men
and their songs muscles broadened over the back of her ribs
her cheeks drew back to their framework the house below grew
distant, quieter anger september weeds folded into dust sand
loosened clay-lined soil she deepened creases in the spines of old books
she began in chalk continued in pencil she hummed to words
ocean wind buckling threshold spirit fire over the spinning vinyl
Sharon Coleman’s a fifth-generation Northern Californian with a penchant for languages and their entangled word roots. She writes for Poetry Flash, co-curates the reading series Lyrics & Dirges and co-directs the Berkeley Poetry Festival. She the author of a chapbook of poetry, Half Circle, and a book of microfiction, Paris Blinks (Paper Press, 2016).
