Five Scenarios for Three Sisters
Five Scenarios for Three Sisters
Joanna C. Valente
i.
Easy to imagine them as horses:
storm jaws eclipse, grass cools on their hinds;
they momentarily forget how to stand.
ii.
If they were a surgeon's hands: a husband wakes
from bypass to find he loves his wife more than his lover,
heart failure turns to agape.
iii.
A light flashes white—they are a camera lens: a woman
scoops ice cream, her child asking if she loves him
skulls gleam orange, assume position.
iv.
Drifts of sea-stuff hive between shells: they are crabs
settling for a final resting place—washing ashore without a husk,
a floundered open-heart surgery.
v.
Split open, ropes of guts unsewn: they are jammed lungs—
birds fly above, beak out their breath;
a butterfly crawls out.