Sample Poems by Janet McCann
Katy Keene
Slim darkhaired cartoon pre-TV heroine
dressed in black decolleté for the
opera, a trim navy suit for the boardroom,
how we loved you! Outside yawned the fifties,
our choices few, marry or perhaps teach
kindergarten. Each frame of you was perfect,
your gloved hand touching a shoulder,
the shirrings and billows of your ball gown.
Page bottom: this outfit was suggested
by Ellen Lyle of Poughkeepsie, New York,
aged nine. Lucky Ellen, how we wished
to see our own names there! All summer long
under the wheezing fan we drew your outfits,
Mary Ann and I, bathing suits for Monaco,
jewels for Inaugurations. Our stocking seams
would be straight as yours someday, princes gaze
discreetly at our ankles. Katy of New York,
Katy of Paris, Boston, always welcomed;
now the band is playing, "Katy, Katy,"
Now a diplomat bends to kiss your hand.
Sometimes you still turn up in dreams, a Katy
blurred into a Mary-Ann-Grown-Up,
waving in elegance and graceful leisure,
sunlight on fabrics, on the whitewashed decks,
a neat salute, aristocrat's farewell
as the yacht heads out toward the darker waters.
The Paris You Sent Me
The Paris you sent me
Has no one in it. Utrillo-shadows
Flower over the stone facades,
Streets reflect rain,
But no blue umbrellas
Bounce across pavement.
The metro exit is empty, its black
Mouth exhales only dust.
The traffic light changes, but
No one crosses. Perhaps
The life is just too fast
For the camera, and even now
We in an old Renault
Glide past the Arche de Triomphe.
Oh, to want a place! And to
Want it so sharply!
Not my most recent Paris,
McDonalds and laundromats, but
This one, the one you sent me,
That you got from the bouquiniste,
Seventy years old, the stall with the
Torn maps, yellowed paperbacks,
The only one left open in
This off-season.
Clues to the Insoluble Acrostic
a fragrant silence.
a band-aid for continental drift.
esperanto for "ineffable."
a military use for tulle.
a small country surrounded by desert.
imaginary flowers with no color.
a dance performed by lingerie.
a piano apparition.
a fruit fed only to condemned men..
a device for counting the lost
memories of Alzheimer's patients.
a confection made of sea and cloud.
a story that compels you to keep reading
right to the unforeseen, unhappy ending.
a clockwork tear.
lunacy, within reason.
a bright abyss.
a green and final lever.