Bartering your
Soul for Salvation
If
you are bartering your soul
you
may be offered
Eleven
silver plates
Ten
white pigeons
Nine
horned bulls
Eight
chewing cows
Seven
windmills milling
Six
dogs a-leaping
Five
rabbits running
Four
ducks flying
Three
wooden branches
Two
turtle-doves
and
One
electric candle in the nave.
So
you want to save your soul.
Make
a list.
What
do you want to save if from?
What
do you want to save it for?
Bigger and Better
Daily,
Mother had an occasion to say
-when
the war is over
or
-before
the war.
Not
sure what that meant,
I
knew it was something desirable.
While
there was a war, I had the field, the brook,
the
beetles and caterpillars, butterflies, foxes,
acorns
and the horse-chestnut trees,
dewy
meadow mornings and wild hares.
A
perfect world. I wondered about bananas,
vaguely
remembered oranges.
--You’ll
have them after the war.
Forty
years on, my daughter screams
her
nightmares into the city-summer night
and
slips into our bed, terror
in
her trembling ten-year old body.
She'd
watched the news again.
Childhood Love Pains
I
look out of my window wondering
if
you will ever return or if you will
just
continue to hide at the edge
of
our yard where we first kissed on that
quiet
summer evening not so long ago.
Your
Metallica t-shirt is glowing in the summer moonlight,
when
you trip on our mr. turtle pool and slip
into
the slightly contaminated water sending the whirligig
beetles
out in a frenzied rush to find a new home.
And
I can’t help thinking back to earlier today when you
destroyed
our love by selecting Betty Lou Blitzinger
as
your chemistry lab partner.
Gladrags and Bling
Lima
the easy, languorous lady – moisturized,
not
bathed. Powdered with desert dust.
She
flutters her gardens at passing callers.
Along
her posh avenidas she dazzles with ponciana,
ficus,
bougainvillae and hibiscus, hiding
scarcity
and age under stunning artifice.
Backstage
you find Xerophytic shrubs,
cactus,
algarroba and a few palm oases.
The
set: coastal desert, almost barren.
In
the Andes' foothills la garúa - a mist rising from the sea –
kisses
the slopes, softly exploding a dense
belt
of flowers on slumbering plants.
One
day I may well tire of velveteen glamour,
lusting
instead for sharp young mornings,
scrubbed
clean by nightly downpours,
storm-tousled
tall grasses, slippery carpets
made
from the trees' discarded garb.
My Cars Were Male
My
first one was Sepp. Short
for
Joseph
in
Bavarian.
‘Rear-hinged
doors make
entering
and exiting a vehicle
easy.’
My friend Viktor put
bathroom
bolts on the inside
of
the doors. Fiat Cinquecento,
tshinkwetshento.
‘This
model also features
a
fabric roof folding all the way
back
to the rear of the vehicle.’
It
did indeed.
The
time: before seat belts.
They
called them suicide doors.
Cherished
tradition of the
horse-drawn
carriage builders.
The
Fiat five hundred
could
do 100 km per hour.
But
you had to help a little
going
uphill.
Also,
everyone
else passed easily,
looking
disturbed.
I
picked up four friends
and
the cat.
We
went all the way.
To
Paris.
I
pretended to be a motorbike.
The
car was only fifty-two inches wide.
When
large pieces began to drop
off
I took them to the cheap mechanic
who
was glad to see me.
Said
I didn’t need them.
Watching
the motorway move
under
my feet I wondered
whether
I’d be able to watch
my
heart if I got rid of the rib cage
which
suddenly seemed
quite superfluous.
Rose Mary Boehm is a
German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of
two novels as well as seven poetry collections. Her poetry has been published
widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated
for a ‘Pushcart’, once for ‘Best of Net’. Her latest: DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER
BORDERS? (Kelsay Books July 2022), WHISTLING IN THE DARK (Cyberwit July 2022),
and SAUDADE (December 2022) are available on Amazon. A new MS, LIFE STUFF, has
been scheduled by Kelsay Books for February 2024. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/
Having a very hard time choosing a favorite among these gems, Rose. Giving up. Love them all.
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