Laurie Clements Lambeth

RELUCTANT PEGASUS*

My poor cane is wounded, but I'm all right;
another chip in the handle. No longer
a three-legged woman, I'm a gimp,
a limper with a numb leg, no sense
of cnjambement, no stride, except
at the wrong moments, maybe a near
fall to scare me, or the sense of a skirt
against the skin where there is no
skirt, so it comes as no surprise
when that numb leg sprouts a tiny wing
at the ankle, another at the knee,
a fluttering one gracing the calf—

and look, up it goes, into the air,
out the window over
fountains where I find myself dancing,
doing a can-can without the right
costume, but I'm still kicking,

like a bay horse I once saw lifted
from a ravine, flailing his legs, dancing
as the helicopter raised him,
a reluctant pegasus who may have seen
the wings I see, flying on some
other volition than his own, his head

drooping from side to side, flanks writhing
toward earth, edging out of the harness
into the air, those wings failing him
as he loosened the thick stitches,
bouncing that cable holding him up ...

I remember him floating a bit,
then his descent into the Pacific,
his legs still kicking, and I guess
that is what happens to the few
who, when given the chance, are still
reluctant (my toe's just hit water)
to fly: the bruised world attracts.

* * *

UNDRESSING THE TREE*

My father and I undress the oak I will
marry under come summer. Pulling off
dead wood, he says. All that moss strangles
the branches, makes life stagnate . . .

I pick
a veil of moss from a low branch, steady
it onto my head, silly crown when he's not
looking. It sticks well, tough lace, bundled
knit patches that cling to limb or hair.

What is
beautiful is known to stifle. Like a wildfire
in the pasture, leaping from sage to sage.
Even that couldn't kill this oak, only lick
the bark. I tell my father I'd like

some moss
remaining, veiling the air. But it binds.
You want this tree to be full next year? Response:
I stoop to collect each scrap from the ground:
the tulle of my own gown and green veil.

Laurie Clements Lambeth lives in Houston with her husband and dog. She is the book review editor for Disability Studies Quarterly. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Indiana Review, Mid-American Review, The Iowa Review and elsewhere. The poems above are taken from Veil and Burn, her first collection of poetry. It was chosen for The National Poetry Series by Maxine Kumin and was reviewed in the June 2008 issue of Wordgathering.