For Jan and Anne

1.
Fat child splashing in a bathtub, saying "Scrub me!"
I soaped the wash rag, worked it between rolling pads
of flesh. Plump little cousin, always to be counted on
for scribbling in my coloring books. Still, I loved her.

Two decades later, she held her child down in the tub.
When she let go, he floated. I'm relieved to read
scientists are growing flies with perfect eyes
on wings, legs, and quivering tips of antennae,

and eight hundred people paid to hear Martha Stewart
say, "Eat fresh lychee nuts. Grow thirty kinds of basil."
Jan, let's try it: torch the baked Hawaii, make sugared
violet petals with lemon curd, ice cubes filled with lilacs.

2.
When music swam back to her, I wasn't afraid. I heard
circus bells and the bells of Bedlam and knew truth
would keep me safe as a child on her father's shoulder.
This has everything to do with a ship disappearing

in a redwood grove, with perfect stairs leading nowhere
between trees, over a brook. In a fur coat with satin lining,
she took a glass of vodka to the garage, switched
on the radio. The door was closed, the Cougar purring,

and a 500-year-old mummy was found in the Andes,
wrapped in bright alpaca, entombed in ice. She may
have gone willingly to her death, the paper said,
like you, Anne, honored to be chosen for the sacrifice.  

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Lucille Lang Day’s poetry collections are Infinities, Wild One, Fire in the Garden, and Self-Portrait with Hand Microscope, which received the Joseph Henry Jackson Award. She also has a poetry chapbook in the “Greatest Hits” series from Pudding House and is the author of Chain Letter, a children's book published by Heyday. The founder and director of Scarlet Tanager Books, she is also the director of the Hall of Health, a children's museum in Berkeley.
E-mail: lucyday at scarlettanager dot com
Website: www.scarlettanager.com
forthcoming chapbook from Lucille Lang Day  

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