Sample Poems by Melanie Dusseau
Ringside Heart
Muscle of our dark leaning
uncurls like the first fist of disease
in a body unaware.
Hands tremble, steady when bound.
The heart pumps, a fat pillow
of thunderous blood, useless
machination like breath,
a nova’s beam unseen
before it is murdered to pieces,
scalped star stuff strewn on the beach.
This heart could animate a corpse or a baboon.
Its only purpose to wet cells
and pray for hooves to crash on the bridge,
knock-deep timbre of wood
and the dark leaning forward of horses,
their flexing desire so like the heart’s
if the heart could lean.
But it will not.
It thuds in the empty church of the body
and waits as still air waits
for a storm to make it wind.
Bestiary for the Breasts of a Starlet
1
Once,
tucked under an armpit,
it squealed.
A jungle pig
caught,
its one eye
blinking, dumb.
2
If cut off,
this other—
gorbelly
stuffed to breaking
with fiber and fat—
would be content
to lie there
sipping sugar on a marsh of sinew
while sailors sang its praises.
Some Angels
Some angels perch on rocks,
the crooks of their arms
hug knees in a snug Lotus.
Older ones abandon all body,
their husks like ancient papyrus
scrolled on beds of down and sunshine.
Some angels never forget.
They make bets, shout down to Earth
and toss up their wings in disbelief
when we fumble, in triumph when we score.
The too-cool smoke cigarettes,
joke like grandpas about cancer
killing them now.
Some angels don’t know they’re dead,
abandon harps unstrung and dusty with denial.
Rowdy ones opt for electric guitars
to accompany thunder’s crescendo,
strum up storms to crack ozone
for that earthbound scent they miss most.
All angels dance.
They shimmy under the disco ball
of divinity’s gymnasium.
A single pin at its center
like a barroom mechanical bull,
a dare for your arrival.
I’ve Held a Gun Before
He took me
into the woods
to shoot it off.
Got behind me
to lead my arm steady,
clicked his thick finger
over the safety.
I squinted,
lips plump and parted:
my concentration face.
The gun, oiled slick
and nose-heavy,
kept slipping, a back-kick
thudding each palm.
I would’ve preferred
a pearl-handled, bantam
Bette Davis .22
that I could whip out
of my dress pocket
and fire off
with a crackling pop.
After he polished
and zipped it away, I knew.
A grip on any live thing
can be one-handed if firm.