Cut Outs

Since we do this on the telephone, you don't
see the daily face, cereal, fresh juice,
my eyes when you cut out leaving your voice
behind, the falling child whose breath won't
come. When I come to, I have become want
the colors of those snipped triangles loose
on the floor after they cut out the house
and two big figures. The depth of the want,
they keep saying, is from the past: hot
oatmeal, a pitcher of cream from the cows
nuzzling in that oval cut from silver,
juice blazing orange, a child's cries not
heeded. But this is the present: How
to stay close, up against that old scissor.


From MEMOIR (Chicory Blue Press, 1998)