Homepage of Carol Novack

POWER TRILOGY

by Carol Novack

I.  Venetian Blinds

You said mauve mauve mauve you did say mauve shouted MAUVE while I was in the closet going through black you blamed me kept on saying black black is a joke you know you said mauve mauve or else and quoted Maud who’d apparently said only mauve has relevance.  We were talking about something I think it was a red very red subject, I was so nervous with the neutral colors which was hard ‘cause HE was around the one you said you used to love who loved beige curtains will always and he kept on saying NO RED he was so loud my ears hurt my eyes hurt imagining violent deaths the violent death of our friendship it turned out, but you have no conception of tenses past future all the same. Well I knew nothing at the time never imagined how you’d react to black I didn’t know how it would scare you and you would never know why but obviously some time long ago nothing to do with me; I mean I knew how you were reacting to red, taking HIS side, HIS side; he had such violet eyes, you couldn’t help but fall into his shallow lap his eyes had that affect on us all even Gertrude and of course HE denied violet, said his eyes were brown like dairy cows like used cars denied the “passionate extravagance” of Red; he said but he was once a church boy and still is really, you know but he did so love Drambuie, so you denied RED and so I laughed at you and you made yourself into a ball I think you were crying and then shouting MAUVE so hilarious as mauve doesn’t SHOUT.  And then there I was in the closet I forget when but it seemed a long time I was looking for a new dress to display my new body after bulimia, so svelte, blaming you for fucking INDIGO shit I mean indigo so incredibly pretentious so I said hah hah indigo, don’t you mean CERULEAN and you said Bitch Bitch I bet you voted for … not the one I was wanting ‘cause YOU you said are so myopic myopic means near-sighted you said I said.  And I said Bitch Bitch you’re fuckin jealous ‘cause I look so fuckin damn good in black and then you opened the closet door and I slammed it and I heard you walk away loud as ever in those stupid angry orange stiletto heels and I never ever saw you again never did and I don’t regret it never as I slither along the streets with the Silver man yes the Silver man, your father, hah, your father the one you haven’t seen in so many years, you fatherfucker, he’s more beautiful than HE the one with the brown eyes like shit the one you love LOVE is excrement and you can never ever have your father . . .  

II.   The Three of Them When

Foolhardy with the three of them you said but hardly a fool seeing full well how well I played with Jimmy Timmy and Bop in all our backyards when the mothers were out they had me I had them down on the perfect lawns they would plant their seeds and they were all three big like columns, Corinthian, Ionic and Dorian, my favorite one Bop the laconic Ionic one ramming like a spring lamb. 

I knew later knew you were watching on the other side of the fences on stepladders you were watching never getting never getting . . . enough.  Ah yes those were we dazed four the big boys and I still with baby fat and frizzy brown mole hair yes there were we dazed four playing all tongues and fingers when you came along you came with fruitcake, bearing fruitcake. 

Five’s too loud I said but you two classes ahead had that sun-drenched hair and “bee-stung” lips, a fount of Nature, Earth princess with daisy babies in your pierced ears and lipstick tasting of strawberries, baby toes painted Lancôme Lavender Mist, voice like an angel’s zither, lithe thighs tanned to pecan, just the breasts l wanted to grow.

In whose backyard did we five play that day that day a summer Thursday maybe, we without mothers, mothers at bridge or bingo or malls, mothers at peace marches, mothers in rehab no mother singular mine.

Bop yes, it was Bop who started at it at you all of him at once and the other two ensued uprooting rhododendrons while rooting you you with your blueberry eyes you were screaming, hands like soft water all over me tongue, singing in my ear you were covering me so their hands wouldn’t find me and I jumped up another girl like me a girl with a cave and breasts touching mine, tongue now in my mouth, bruising my lips, you bit, I ran.

You didn’t want them not the boys no not them with their columns so like rocks those boys you said later when you found me crying by the honeysuckles . . . 

III.   Seesaw, Waves 

You’re up I’m down as the waves approach and rise like supplicating hands.

I’m up you’re down as the waves collapse you can hear them and I say crash; CRASH I shout to the gods, gods make her turn into nothing nothing like the sea without distinction, nothing, nothing like waves.

As we rise we fall and you can hear the waves so loud and bruised as they return
to the sea, bruised as they realize.

But no not you, you cannot hear; you hear nothing but your own proud baby boom voice, sing nothing but little girl songs all rosy with bows and much too sweet make me sick.

You were up I was down thinking of silver ponies perhaps when you said stop it stop it let me down let me down. Your voice was rising but I planted my feet firmly in the sand my tot’s toes roots, put my fingers in my ears.

You seemed so far up so far you would disappear into sky become sky sky like sea like nothing become nothing nothing but silence; I was so hoping not to hear your voice but you cried and screamed kept on screaming so our mother approached oh she approached running; so there was no choice but to will you back to be, no choice: my ears were hurting I was all pain all pain.

No I did not want them to know I did not want you to be for I was already sewn and flowering and you were all sewn up neat as ever you had come out of the void that way with dry tears no stains goody goody you so much lesser than I and so much more loved: DNA and Divine Destiny; no, just a bit of chance.

Perhaps you knew as you always have, you so suddenly seeming wounded well seemingly so in your angel pink bathing suit with tender moon blue hearts -- you who looked at me as if I were yes I was a wave of approaching fire so so hot and there was our mother not wanting to know I saw her wondering who emerged from my womb? as she saw the flame in my eyes and her voice was rising too they all were I guess you were had been screaming for centuries they had and will go on and on and so I put my fingers in my ears. It was like that, is.

********

You are heavy so heavy always were, have always been much too of everything, too full of assets everything you is you with your handy pocket mirrors red Chanel dress diamond earrings pompous ostentatious hearts black leather sofas so engaged you are engaged in your self to your self; yes it sparkles I say that trophy on your finger and in the flesh the husband trophy tall cleft chin banker man banker man blue suit blue eyes so predictable of you . . .