Phoebe Marrall (3 poems)
MY MOON, MY FULL MOON
I possess her like a pearl
because she is there for the taking.
Or is it that she possesses me?
Like a moth, I flutter and creep
in her 5:00 a.m. light, dancing
in the shadow of trees,
clothing myself in
the yellow and silver
she furnishes so freely.
MY WALLET OF AGING
Can’t I still reach for that lace?
I’ve hardly begun to smooth it over my hips.
In theory, I should be able to think young—
upscale chocolates, profiteroles,
a trip to Victoria’s Secret,
cocktails at noon—but in the company
of youth, I’ve stepped on the fragile cover
and fallen through. Shelves of fragrance,
outrageous shoes, that shiny gold chain,
are cordoned off. I’ve lost a little fear,
true, and carry a little money now.
But it can’t be blown on a liberal spill
of “Walnut Rose.” I also carry
a burden of fear.
AWAY FROM SPEEDING LAUGHTER
Away, out of sight, beyond strong leaves,
I want enclosure, and bonds of soft wool
to cradle myself away from speeding laughter,
and the noise pushing up-down, up-down when,
barely seated, I am carried off to the side.
So this is a surfer wedding, I say to the person
next to me, who happens to be me in ennui.
These young heads are crowned with perfect sun-spray;
I have noticed them tossed, and stilled when the
bridal couple edges toward them in flip-flops and boots.
This is affluent casual, so cool it moves words from
out of the mouths of babes to the breath of old folks,
and pulls me by the ear to the mic of the wedding docent.
She emcees us into Hawaiian rock-and-roll, and the baited
back-and-forth of guys and girls who dance with abandon.
No, my white wool does not enclose or cradle me away
from the pitch of custom and rolling decibel.
It spreads itself as thin as smoke and whitens all.
Phoebe Marrall, orphaned at the age of nine, was a survivor of The Depression and of a grueling childhood. When she died in 2017 at the age of eighty-four, her daughters Jane Hendrickson and Camille Komine inherited hundreds of poems she had written. They remained unpublished during her lifetime, but it is the intention of her daughters that a collection be compiled for readers to appreciate. “Relief, Have You a Name?” is currently a work in progress, being edited by Gayle Jansen Beede.