Nothing captures the truth

Nothing captures the truth of the image:
            the luminous quality
            of the center of the pitcher
            and the glass in the morning light,
     that particular color of off-white/cream/not-beige-lighter-than-beige/linen
the linen of the curtain draping
to the floor, the shading of the drape
that you learned how to evoke all those years ago in the classroom
in the early light with charcoal
the classroom with the geraniums struggling in their pot by the window,
the window and the rusty bannister that led to the roof
although no one ever went out there,
we were bent over our sheets of paper,
first with permanent marker so we learned how to draw a line with confidence
and then with the charcoal and the pastel
and the trip to the sideboard where the hairdryers lay waiting
for us to finish off our washes and dip
our watercolor brushes for the next thing,
the colors mixed
                painstaking
but never quite right

and your camera, your camera phone now,
none of it ever captures the truth of the scene you try to capture,
the cherry blossoms set to bloom but not yet, not yet,
the startle-surprise of the first green buds
under the still-lowering sky
and now weeks later, those same buds wafting out a scent
you think is cinnamon but no cardamom but no
         something familiar but certainly not of this place
and the yellow flowers multiplied you recognize now for jasmine
jasmine from the incense stick, the scent packed across mountains
and cities from trucks and forklifts,
packed powdered and tight in boxes within boxes,
bagged and bought and sold
and placed in a fireproof receptacle and lit
and here blooming before you at the end of someone's driveway,
someone who planted a garden they haven't had time to weed
nothing will capture it
                       or the swans gliding majestic
over the surface of the pond,
which itself changes every day
and no one can capture the way the sparkles glint in the light,
moving, like the swans, majestic,
oh they try yes they try but nothing
nothing captures it not even words

Frances Donovan
May 1, 2008

Maeve offered him even the pleasure of her thighs
- From the story of the Cow of Connacht and the Battle of Cuchulainn

Return to the food
return to the window before you:
single curtain side frame
shingled roof and brown brick building
		street between
the street always moving
still at this hour
never still

Return to the frame
Mind wanders
		maps
			peregrinates
unstuck from time
from the breakfast table
skips ahead
to the next bite of toast and what to spread on it
	butter
soy spread	
	margarine		sweet fruit
		banana
mashed peanuts
		acne
red Morse dash at the parting of her hair—
does that mean she is unmarried?
smile at the bag boy/
			grown man
hand him the green canvas/not canvas to contain your food
land of plenty 
penniless
	return
to the bite of toast in your mouth
this moment. here.
release the next. cars shush through the
windowpane,
		the eyes
of your limited spaceship
return
	to the bite of toast in your mouth
to the hot brown liquid
in the heavy porcelain
warming the palm
of your right hand

Frances Donovan
March 9, 2008

Most days I wake up thinking of you
afraid to tell the truth
doubtful of its validity—-
the foolish heart mistaken before:
one vista spread before it,
pulled back, a cyclorama,
cycling back
	        into the back
beyond
back story

Weeping, inappropriate, I turned
into the circle of your arms, bare chest
(where before there was heat, now weeping)
-Do you want me to go?
-No, I want you to stay.
	-It’s not you. It’s old stuff
(you called me beautiful)
-We all have old stuff, you say
and stay
	the tears dry—-pleasure takes its place.

Doubt the truth’s validity:
heart open, hands clasped,
rain on the face, the glasses—-won’t let
you shield me from the spray of trucks I might
get used to it, I might forget
how to tolerate the wet

Turn from the vista to this
I know:
	your nipples, always two points
beneath my fingers, soft or gentle
or pinched	or bitten
or loved with the hands,
loved up-—the sides
the smooth side of your belly,
the taste of its curve,
legs turned, released,
soothe you to trust the weight of your limbs
to my hands-—strong
stronger
	A gentle day a love
blooming from the center of our beds
Don’t trust the love till it creeps
into other rooms
or outdoors
	     or onto pages
or elsewhere creeping to the rooms
revealed when you pull back the
backdrop—-beyond proscenium and
arch and black-painted bricks,
the complicated flies with their rigging
and the costume rooms and shelves of props—-
beyond those rooms there must be other rooms
other rooms I want to see you in.

Frances Donovan
March 10, 2008
April 7, 2008

release the noise
turn from the drum outside the ears
turn inward. the quiet. there.
what you want

oh, fear
oh, fear old friend
yes, you too I embrace
I release you

ever deeper--there
the purpose. here.
I am incurred 
       recurred. a cur.
       inured. assured
       unswerved. here the kernel.
the notion beneath the noise
above the noisy genitals
lies the genus. here.
from this I can march.
       unswerving.

Frances Donovan
February 27, 2008

the heart opens in the midst of snow
the heart and something else
			         to say yes,
to say alive, yes
winter yes
	    dark yes
streetlamp and its scattered veil yes
heart rises
	   triumph yes
	death yes
		darkness yes
alive oh
	good underwear oh
			wool oh
    cotton spandex silk oh yes
the layers conquering you yes
in the midst of darkness in the midst of snow behind
inside it through and out the other end black hole
of winter singularity yes
to zero
	and to the other side
of zero.

Frances Donovan
February 22, 2008
Spy Pond and Minuteman Trail, Arlington, MA