Cynthia Kraman Genser
From the "Schwartzman and Brightman Poems"
Schwartzman comes to St. Lukes in the dusk
Circumambulating the garden's rim
It worries him that his second daughter
Will make a mess of graduate school
For which he's sold his favorite seascape
Bending towards the spreading sweet apple tree
In the middle of it all, a flower
Arrests him. It seems to float to him. It is
A brown button nose. Golden petals
Rise above oceans (shoulders) of teal bright leaves
Who are you? Asks the absent mouth
But the question is cordial so he answers
"My worries and the painting that I sold" —
Plausible monster, it says, why shouldn't you miss
The beautiful sea unleashing your heart and ours?
The Imaginary/The Angel of Cinema in the 60's
"Little idiot" you used to call me
What strange music you made with my atoms!
I was sure we'd meet again in the course of time
Your angel now a fistula or shell
In other words: a wound or just nothing
The angel of you had departed, done
Lying like a shadow on the ship's deck
Were the wings in which I watched old movies
While cannibalizing the incredible foam
Of silky, photographed experience
You never actually called me any names
It was just your eyes inserting gold coins
Into the machine of me adrift on
Your body I loved so completely
Even when they faded your angel to black
Cynthia Kraman Genser's poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Western Humanities Review, Speechless the Magazine, Poetry Flash, Open City, and elsewhere. Her most recent collection is The Touch, nominated for the 2011 Poets' Prize. She is also the author of The Mexican Murals, Club 82, and Taking on the Local Color. In 1979, she started a band, Chinas Comidas, with musician Rich Riggins. Their retrospective CD has received rave reviews. Cynthia Kraman Genser holds a doctorate in medieval literature from University of London, Queen Mary, and lives in New Paltz, New York.