Clockwise Cat Issue 40

Two POEMS
By Carol Alexander
The Head of John the Baptist
is my father's. He set it on the nightstand
where nurses mess about with tubes.
Yahya preaches, once took me to the river
where we fished for golden carp. A stone
rose from the waters, eyes gone blind.
A birth was foretold, a middle name changed.
The river was in Samaria, the troubled West Bank.
The head has no politics so to speak.
My father is all day trawling for words.
I'm left to mourn the ones that get away.
Translations
Read them first in an unknown tongue
just for the sound, a rustle of yearning wings,
a cherubic earful. Then imagine a cranial microchip
or Babel made celestial via a tuning fork.
The flesh made word: isn't this our game.
All peoples peel away their skin, bare belly gourds,
tongue an acculturated lust. Goose gabble, hiss of reeds,
gossip thick with buttery aftertaste. Who
have you been reading, round table of 9 A.M.,
translators of sweet rolls and stinging rage?
In the basement, an alien teaches herself to spell,
spits seeds from a carambola, toes the gray dust mice.
Redact this land's language of myriad diasporas,
a fiasco rich in reverberation. Winds echo. Last night
pierced palms caught the lachrimal overflow:
a puddled text you couldn't sound.
Author bio: Carol Alexander is the author of Bridal Veil Falls (Flutter Press, 2013),
Habitat Lost (Cave Moon Press, 2017) and the forthcoming Environments (Dos Madres
Press, 2018). Her poetry has appeared in various anthologies and journals. Most recent
and forthcoming work can be found in One, The High Window, Southern Humanities
Review, Leveler, Third Wednesday, and Halfway Down the Stairs.