As You Might Claim Love

by Carol Frost

(reprinted from AGNI 4)

If by blinking, your eyes turn sharp
as they are bright, you see like a knife
can smell blood. Glitter: keeping watch
at the border, your fences are electric eels.
In the slightest wave of a hand from the woods
you hear a call to arms, feel the dog in you
leap to your throat as if you would growl,
fearing the disappearance of the hand
in the strange, black woods.
Your voice a spotlight, you encircle
the small gesture, “Who goes there?” This way it grows
from nothing to a trophy or a password.
Anyway, your own, as you might claim love.

In boot camp you learned nothing subtle
about time. Your heart under house arrest,
the flick of a wrist can turn the sun black
or raise the day to the ceiling
the way he lifts your son.
In your breast pocket is a manual
describing what you stand to lose,
whereas the dream is the uniform of the day.
As sentry you are so quickened.

 

(from AGNI 4 & 56)

Carol Frost’s poems have appeared or will appear in The Seneca Review, North American Review, and The Little Review. (1975)