Morningside Park, Hand, Stump

Linus Gelber

I. Suffrage

Let her do the baking.
Let her make butterbread from the ashes
of days burnt together collecting
-- from breeze, from snowfall --
the flour and water, the yeast
of the Phoenix sunrise.
Her hands are large and stillwet,
boats on supple water flying sails
that race the wind's sifting waves.

In summer,
give her coxcomb and queenannslace
to knot in her hair,
let her gather chokecherries
and press them into bitter liqueur
to glitter red in next season's sun.
Read the poem written
in her hand:
Hold Your Peace.

- from Woman in Tall Black, c. 1986

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