The Spoon's Perspective, By Alicia Cole

Yes, I birthed them all.

Every bright soldier, every one.

You can't say the lame one

turned to salt after all. 

The paper dancer?

Not made of the sternest stuff.

I would have advised him if he'd asked,

but who asks their mother once

they're grown and a soldier

besides?  I was always inside him,

but easy to ignore. 

Flimsy thing, that dancer. 

I wished she'd stayed to mourn

instead of following.  I would have

liked to know her better.  But that's

why her spangle blackened, I say. 

She chided herself.  He? 

A perfect heart, and me still with him. 

He should have chosen a milk maid

instead, someone else well made of tin.

It would have been interesting

to talk to her mother,

us both stepping back,

watching the good sparks fly.


Alicia Cole lives and writes in Huntsville, AL.  She's the editor of Priestess & Hierophant Press, and a visual artist.  You can find her at www.priestessandhierophant.com and www.facebook.com/AliciaColewriter.

Dance Me to the End, By Alicia Cole

What does it feel like to simply let go?
Leonard Cohen, like so many,
had had enough. So, what does
it feel like to simply let go?
It feels like the changing of years,
the year's body once strong and robust
with spring-sapped arms and torsos,
the year's body remembering
the sap as it withers and turns.
And what about the sound?
The year and life sing a song like this:
once upon a time, there was a prince
who lived in a lofty tower, a tower,
a tower of song. And that prince loved
his tower and lived there in a stalwart
way until the princess of his dreams
beckoned him down to the ground
to get into the rain. He left the tower,
as all lovelorn princes do, and hit
the ground running towards her.
And love is why he died. Yes, Love.
Love of all princesses and queens
and ladies of the night. Love of all
mornings and mists. The princess,
as many princesses do, left the prince
for another, left him standing outside
his tower, left him in the morning
with the flowers blooming just past
his straining grasp. Love is why
he lived. And Love is on the other side
of the changing body, the changing year.
See the chandeliers on New Years,
the way they catch the light of every soul.
See the candles flare and Leonard Cohen
laughing. He'll be in the new year
also, really, as all matter of things
skip over that way in time, in due time,
especially singers and song tellers
and men who understand the tower
of time and rhyme even when they leave
for expected riffs.


Bio: Alicia Cole lives and writes in Huntsville, AL.  She's the editor of Priestess & Hierophant Press, and a visual artist.  You can find her at www.priestessandhierophant.com and www.facebook.com/AliciaColewriter.

Petunias, By Alicia Cole

They clipped us off like so many petunias

in Alabama.  Always we lived in Alabama.

My mother and grandmother's hands were

white from flouring chicken.  I wondered

how they wrung the neck.  Not the gesture

of it, mind, but the feel-the feathery heft,

the quick snapping flop of the body's

weight, the singular motion of a wrung

body nestled on a strong arm.   Fathers,

I learned, were also made for wringing.

Huddled against my mother's thigh, 

her apron momentarily dry, I did not

hunger to understand any of the preceding

motions that had tied him to that tree.

I ate my first apricot that day, the Mistress

feeling sorry.  My mouth suckled the pit.

It's the roadside now where I stand, close 

to where the men in hoods have stood,

still eager to flour chickens, still raising

their wild petunia heads in Alabama.  

My grandmother sometimes stands 

with me when she's not wandering,

worrying her mouth with all the trying 

times of child rearing and Master tiring.

One day she will pass on-like my mother,

like my father-after all the worry is gone.

I will still be here wondering why some 

petunias are cut down while others 

are allowed to grow wild.  Will they ever

all feel sorry?  Where is God and His apricot 

and its perfect grow-anew pit?

Alicia Cole lives and writes in Huntsville, AL.  She's the editor of Priestess & Hierophant Press, and a visual artist.  You can find her at www.priestessandhierophant.com and www.facebook.com/AliciaColewriter.

Understanding Balance: A Fairy Godmother'd Perspective, By Alicia Cole

She was often tired. And the kitchen was sometimes
dirty. There'd be an unscoured pot, at the least. 
And, her husband, who I never met: he  was lazy, 
and louche,  and full of rum and vinegar.  
A sour combination.

Still, she gave well enough. When she wasn't
angry, or hurt, or mending. A fairy godmother
in pain is an evil thing indeed. Wands reverse.
Wands kill. Women don't do well under
a desperately heavy load.

I'm just a child and the man I'm to marry
has long hair and rides a white horse,
the way it always should be. She tuts over me.
Feeds me pork roast. Lets me steal an occasional
cherry tomato.

I'm just a child and the man I'm to marry
doesn't call often. He's a traveler. He's a roamer.
He's a healer. There's another who comes calling,
though, and when he does, this desperado, she 
sits me down, hands me a spoon,

and begins to speak. Spoons' concavity are good
for reviewing the echoes of a day. You see yourself,
a larger-nosed mirror of youth, a plump-cheeked
vixen, squalling, broken-toothed child. Spoons
are one of life's pleasures.

We talk through desperados. We talk through
insecurities. We talk through every trump
and tower and toffee in the whole damn deck.
And when we're done, I'm no longer in need
of concavity. I curl up in bed.

See horses. See men with long hair. See my fairy
godmother turning her wand the right way. See spring.
See summer. See childbearing time. See winter
melt away and it's cranky, clacking grief. See time.
And a long black cat

slowly slinking, past my fairy godmother. Through
doors less clanky and clacking than grief. To the other side
of time where everything really did happen. And has
become as hum as the tea kettle. And I do not fear
her blessings or wishes or pleas.

Alicia Cole lives and writes in Huntsville, AL.  She's the editor of Priestess & Hierophant Press, and a visual artist.  You can find her at www.priestessandhierophant.com and www.facebook.com/AliciaColewriter.

Image by Arthur Rackham.