Three Poems
by Mark J. Mitchell
THE MAKE-UP TABLE
She will never
find her way back.
Not to her last love.
Not to the bird-headed god.
They do not call her.
She will never hear them.
Flowers and the river
can’t lure her out of dark.
No, but these precious pots
and her cat-fur brushes
they will keep her
in this stone tomb.
Her punishment, just this,
there is no light—
she won’t see her mirror.
SOME SINS
Your piety and heresy don’t interest God. —Mahsati
Some things are holy, some others are not.
There is a choice that is never your choice.
Dream falling from a peak you forgot,
that’s unholy. So’s the tree with its mystic knot—
it unties nothing. All the battles you fought—
unblessed and, yes, unholy. The deep voice
in dreams is sometimes holy, others, it’s not
a choice but a command. It’s not your choice.
Blasphemy and heresy are sad games
you shed like skin. You know God doesn’t care
where you look. Your God never wears a name
you can blaspheme. Heretics play their games
inside churches—changing ancient refrains
in imperfect hymns, altering dead prayers
for blasphemy’s sake. The heresy game
sheds you like skin you knew. God doesn’t care.
THE PINK LADY’S COMMUTE
Rush hour. The bus stops. Riders jostle, part
like curtains. She appears—regal—across
the clearing aisle. Her hooded eyes start
to scan those who stay. She leans on her pink
suitcase. Does she see you? Does her head toss
just slightly? She’s serene as a relic.
Silent. Her lips show she knows a secret
you misplaced. She rules the old folk’s seat, clicks
her case with a stiff finger. Resets
the lock, then rests. Stiff-backed. Still as a sphinx.
A statue of sorrows, not of regrets.
She’ll ride long past your stop. Through numbered streets
to almost the ocean. She’ll be the last
off this bus, careful with the case. Her feet
touch earth. She’ll adjust her clean, old dress—pink
as dawn. She’s been out riding since breakfast.
Looking down the hill, her city unscrolls
ahead of her. She’s sure of some power
she shares with this place—a something she knows
that hills know. It smiles at her like a sphinx.
She waits. The bus back leaves in half an hour.
Mark J. Mitchell has been a working poet for 50 years. He’s the author of five full-length collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. He’s fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco where he points out pretty things.
COLD SIGNAL 