2
" The life spills over, some days.
She cannot be at rest,
Wishes she could explode
Like that red tree—
The one that bursts into fire
All this week.
Senses her infinite smallness
But can’t seize it,
Recognizes the folly of desire,
The folly of withdrawal—
Kicks at the curb, the pavement,
If only she could, at this moment,
When what she’s doing is plodding
To the bus stop, to go to school,
Passing that fiery tree—if only she could
Be making love,
Be making a painting,
Be exploding, be speeding through the universe
Like a photon, like a shower
Of yellow flames—
She believes if she could only catch up
With the riding rhythm of things, of her own electrons,
Then she would be at rest—
If she could forget school,
Climb the tree,
Be the tree,
burn like that. "
― Alicia Suskin Ostriker
6
" Wanting All
Husband, it's fine the way your mind performs
Like a circus, sharp
As a sword somebody has
To swallow, rough as a bear,
Complicated as a family of jugglers,
Brave as a sequined trapeze
Artist, the only boy I ever met
Who could beat me in argument
Was why I married you, isn't it,
And you have beaten me, I've beaten you,
We are old polished hands.
Or was it your body, I forget, maybe
I foresaw the thousands on thousands
Of times we have made love
Together, mostly meat
And potatoes love, but sometimes
Higher than wine,
Better than medicine.
How lately you bite, you baby,
How angels record and number
Each gesture, and sketch
Our spinal columns like professionals.
Husband, it's fine how we cook
Dinners together while drinking,
How we get drunk, how
We gossip, work at our desks, dig in the garden,
Go to the movies, tell
The children to clear the bloody table,
How we fit like puzzle pieces.
The mind and body satisfy
Like windows and furniture in a house.
The windows are large, the furniture solid.
What more do I want then, why
Do I prowl the basement, why
Do I reach for your inside
Self as you shut it
Like a trunkful of treasures? Wait,
I cry, as the lid slams on my fingers. "
― Alicia Suskin Ostriker
13
" Instead of Image, we possess Word. . . . words, unlike images, are powerful yet indeterminate, slip and slide and escape when you think you have them pinned, contain immeasurable dark interiors.
An image is motionless, timeless. It gives itself to you immediately. But language moves, it exists only in time, in history, the past melting and rushing toward the future, provoking you, dancing away [Out of the Garden]. "
― Alicia Suskin Ostriker
