The Dodge in the Woods, Local Woman Missing, Swamp Willow, After Giselle
Poems by Claire Keyes
The Dodge in the Woods
When we pass a car junked beside the trail,
I imagine a dead body festering in the trunk
and feel a spike of fear.
Oh come on, my husband says,
it’s just a Dodge.
He turns back to check it out, reminding me
that country people ditch cars all the time:
in their front yards, the woods.
Get a few guys, a couple of six packs, flip it over.
He kicks it.
A worthless shit-box of a car, this Dodge.
A coupe with swept wings,
nothing can camouflage its pathos: no joy rides,
no agile lovers wrestling in its back seat.
In the lee of its bruised fender, seedlings
root and stretch towards the sun.
Soon a forest growing up
and through the car—as in the Yucatan,
the Mayan ruins.
The Dodge sinks
further into the earth. He’s gone on
and I hustle to keep up.
Local Woman Missing, Locked Car Found on Shore Drive
She left no note, her shopping trip
ordinary as Egg Rock on the horizon.
Her husband escaped every morning, didn’t he?
And she pretended to sleep, delaying the change
from nightgown to street clothes:
what street, who to visit?
She watches a jogger
until he’s a spot on the beach.
She hasn’t run since she was a girl,
yet something pounds inside her.
She has no words for it,
but she’s never felt so present,
so entranced at the face that stares back
from the side window: a mouth
she can twist into a smile.
Rolling down the window, she sniffs
the rank odor of algae. It reminds her
of cabbages ripened and unpicked in their garden
among shallow‑rooted clover and celandine, weeds
she refused to pluck out. She takes pleasure in fruit
left to rot in the refrigerator beside leftovers
in plastic wrap, their blooms a luminous blue.
What dinner, who to feed? She slips off
her pumps, pulls on her son’s old running shoes.
He will search the towns to find her locked car
and never know why she was drawn to this shore.
She knew no one would notice: children
still in school, most runners tied up at noon.
And when she hardly casts a shadow,
she will run towards the water, slowly at first,
then stepping boldly onto the front page,
first a headline, then page two,
then a smudge on the fingers, an ache
that won’t go away.
Swamp Willow
Two men buttressed by a truck, a chipper attached
like a cranky caboose, take down the swamp willow.
Air-borne, one man wields his chain-saw
from a bucket dangerously close to utility wires.
The other feeds the tree, chunk by chunk
into the machine that chews them up
then shoots the chips into the maw of the truck.
The men work hard, cutting, lifting, shredding.
My willow won’t cradle the moon, nor shadow
the October yard, daisies spent, asters on the ascent.
After an hour’s hacking, the forked stump stands topless,
a remnant that opens up a space I’m not sure I can fill.
Once branches embraced the sky, roots stretched deep
into the past century.
The tree man commiserates, telling me
it was rotting away: ants, fungus.
Lose something every day, Elizabeth Bishop tells herself
as if she needed to practice, as if we could develop
a flair for loss.
Why the Fishermen of Newfoundland Shoot Icebergs
At a desolate port, a fishing boat waits
like a clerk who hasn’t seen a customer all day.
Fish all but gone, they’re game
for a tourist or two. My husband stands on the prow
alert for sea birds, his passion; mine, the iceberg
we’ve seen from shore.
It’s cold enough, even in July,
for me to huddle down below with captain and crew.
I sit on a foot locker
while the boat tosses and heaves along the coast,
rain spitting against the glass wind screen.
When an iceberg visits, the captain says,
fishermen gather up their rifles and shoot.
His mate expounds: Icebergs snarl nets.
A few bullets open a crack,
splitting the ice to hasten its melting.
I meet my husband on deck when we draw close
to the mountain of ice, its ridges and crevasses
monumental. Air pockets reflect the light
which glows green as emerald, a vast beauty
rivaling the dawn sky which has spread
measureless and pink ever since the north Atlantic
thrashed with the great nation of Cod.
But no more, the fishermen’s rage rising
with their rifles, taking aim and raking the sky
as if determined to become
a presence no one can ignore.
After Giselle
In the crowded trolley, I feel someone touching me,
a man gesturing to the seat he’s vacated, asking,
Would you like to sit down?
His voice is hesitant and even though I’m stiff
from three hours folded into a balcony seat at the ballet,
I’d rather stand and take pleasure
in the swaying of the car and the vision of myself
performing an arabesque, my right leg elevated,
toe pointed back
while my left leg steadies and supports the line of my body
parallel to the floor.
For my back is limber, had better be
after all my sun salutations, my vinyasas.
And here’s this man.
The look in his eyes, like I’m his beloved granny.
Is he twenty, twenty-five?
He sees not a prima ballerina, but a woman of a certain age.
I’d like to slug him, blacken his clueless eyes.
Still, there’s his gallantry, rare as Raleigh’s cape
here in Boston on the Green Line in the 21st century.
So I thank him and sit down.
All poems are reprinted from ‘What Diamonds Can Do’ published by Cherry Grove Collections
Claire: Five beautiful poems! Each one makes me think and feel something new. And each seems to aspire to the undefinable grace it has found. Thanks for having the skill and making the effort to write real poetry. It is a reminder of a great art, that actually for decades now, has been lost and replaced by too many vacuous would-be pop poets. I’m off to the internet, starting with Amazon, to see where I can buy your collection, “What Diamonds Can Do”.
Wonderful, meaningful poems by Claire Keyes. She shares her remembrance of her late husband in some of these words, brings him back to check out the abandoned “Dodge in the Woods” and shares witness of ” Why Fishermen of Newfoundland Shoot Icebergs.” The descriptive words show the weeds growing and wrapping the wrecked car, which has become a monument to its own passing. And the vulnerability of the huge islands of ice, floating in the Atlantic; how the fisherman shoot cracks into them, hopeful of hastening the melting. No more damaged nets if they are gone!
“Local woman, locked car found on Shore Drive.” The title says it all. I’m right there, sensing what she feels as she enters the water, escaping her own life, coming back in the headlines of the newspaper. I feel her son’s ache as he searches for her. “Swamp Willow” disappears. chopped down, ground up into sawdust, a result of fungus and rot. But it’s gone now, branches no longer hugging the lonely sky. Then, Elizabeth Bishop’s reminder to practice losing something, a chance to develop a “flair for loss.”
Finally,”After Giselle.” The poem made me smile. The young man offering a seat on the crowded trolley, the author wanting to stand and sway in her own dance, having just come from a ballet performance. But she accepts his generous offer, completes this kind dance between strangers.
Claire’s words bring me right there. The descriptive, unforced words feed my own imagination, and allow me to feel, not simply read, the message in her poems.