Journal of Provincial Thought #20 May 2011:Celebrated Poetry: Marion Jones

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Marion Jones

Fishing

They cycle down to the rocks, to steps of an

incoming tide foaming with snow, while stainless steel

spokes thrum allegretto.

From blue-black shell, she scoops sienna flesh.

He weights the line, baits the hook, casts out.

Through liquid half-light, a fish struggles up.

Black fins and tail, a tattered flag blows in the wind.

Entrails disgorge, flaxen, rose, mauve.

They bag the fish, bike back to the kitchen tap.

Scrub scales, salt, sand from the sink. Find oil, pan,

cook, feast, wash up.

A toothpick bent, reflect on blood and guts, on

destiny wedged between shining spokes of hope.

In the Wall

A room in the wall still fills her mind,
shelves stocked with oil, salt, grain, a pallet to
sleep on, a spring to drink from.
She waits for him to waken, to look at her,
beneath the roofing iron orange with rust. Along
the warp of floor, the tongue-and-groove, where
is a crack for slipping through? Behind the
stairs, a builder will pry boards from the wall.
Among the feathers, grass, leaves, twine, yarn,
thread, bright ribbon, goat hair, shreds of cloth,
no decaying carcasses or nests, only speckled
shell of blue or cream. And space for her.

Solitude to be Less Solitary

Two grand pianos fit back to back across

bare boards of the stage.

‘We seldom listen to music,’ she says.

‘Nothing happens in-between?’

Four hands on two keyboards pause before

the steps of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor Concerto’,

terraces, ledges, uplands rising to the ceiling, the

dome of the universe.

Jud must know about music, how edges of

her red scarf, the carpet’s red crosses, the piano

benches’ red velvet harmoniously merge with the

touch of hands on keyboards. ‘Being-alone and

being-with are one tonight’, she says.

‘Don’t say it’, Jud says.

‘Perhaps you mean, words hinder an

experience of the unseen?’

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