Catherine Strisik is the author of The Mistress: a journey with the ravages and intricacies of Parkinson’s Disease and its accompanying betrayals, loves, and acceptances, and the diminishment and enlightenment of both the physical and spiritual self: forthcoming from 3: A Taos Press. She is also author of Thousand-Cricket Song, 2010, (Plain View Press), a poetic response to the genocide and healing in Cambodia. Active in the Taos poetry community for over 30 years, Strisik has received grants, honors and prizes from Peregrine, and Comstock Review, The Puffin Foundation, as well as a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. Some of her publications include Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Drunken Boat, Cider Press Review, Cutthroat, Studio, 5 AM, Café Review, Tusculum Review. She is co-editor of the online journal, Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art.---------
In Late Afternoon Gold Each
moment
I’ve
I’ve
waited
with my startled
heartbeat
a voice almost a whisper smile smile again look at me the /i/
edging me toward an
often burrowed beauty.
How exact my how fingered my
balance on one foot my already pricked wound aromatic
with gesture and delay the
lids a protective shield like shades eyes hidden my
eyes, an unsteady rhythm
of gaze. I’m too
thin I know. If only I’d had a bit more weight on my bones
eaten more feta that month and
fatted lamb the lines
of the last year’s nervous sienna
my one holy a
mention
of wolf
the mere mention of—
wolf turns me
the most beautiful
I’ve known
oh
for god's sake
I’ve worn
two wedding dresses
both of them ivory
one with a hat with a veil the other
with a fetus all before the lines that
developed into the rest of life's
mirroredness. But who would know? My husband
with his new appreciation for composition
and an unusual need for orange blossom
honey. Watches
from the barbwire fence.