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Delivery Room
My body is a canvas stretched
To catch a falling wing walker
Pulsing like a tom tom in some obscure and distant jungle
Soon the cry will strike an opaque wall
Ricochet down the ivory corridor
It will wriggle like a serpent
Dancing in the dust
While attendants scurry like fat white mice.
Tiara:
A Pavane For A Soul In Peril
How exquisite the rubies of Cressida
A spark of blood upon the satin snow
How blinding Hagarıs emeralds
Daggers of green fire
Ablaze upon bodices
Of ivory and ice
Inviting the pale garnet upon the throat of Jezebel
The poniard of platinum nestled in Bathshebaıs ear
The sapphire of Melisande, the diamonds of Helen
Carve wounds upon white velvet
The opal and amethyst beckon
In damask and brocade, the anointed woo the onyx eyes of
Sheba
Court Francescaıs tongue of beryl, Isoldeıs marble thigh
Embrace the alabaster flame upon the Stygian barge
Caress the torch of Cerberus at the gate
Cast aside Aaronıs breastplate, the scroll of Solomon, a
solitary pearl.
The Harp At Birth
Remember the womanıs body is no rude vessel
To be snatched in hunger from the shelf
But an artifact chiseled with exquisite care
By a craftsman whose touch told him
The momentıs not in that customary thrust
Of legs tangled in a labyrinth
But in finely tuned fingertips
That pluck from the filamentary rib
A single cry
You are the leaven
Who will kneed this loaf
Into the bread of life.
Suzanne R. Harvey
is retired. She lectured for 19 years in the English Department of Stanford
University in California in the USA. In addition, during that time for
almost a decade, she served as a resident fellow in an all-freshmen dormitory.
Before that, she was an instructor at Tufts University in New England, where she
received her doctorate in Elizabethan poetry, specifically that of Edmund
Spenser. Recently, in her retirement she has been active in teaching at
Emeritus College in the San Francisco Bay Area for about six years. She is the author of over
30 published poems and some 30 awards from contests and competitions.
Email: Suzanne R. Harvey
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