Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2011

The Courtyard 
Judith Skillman

Never forget winter:
             when it began
and when it will end.

Don’t pretend
eastern trees unfurl new leaves
             when ice, pockmarked,
                           blackens
a bit of cement.

                                             Where
ice winds around a corner
looking for the old woman,
who will slip
             and break her hip.

Better to wear a mask.
Make up takes to your face
             as if it had been waiting
all cooped up
             in little bottles
             with French names.

Or patent pink,
at the tip of the soft brush
wanting to stroke
             your cheek bone.

It’s true you might find
a bit of beauty sleep
             left behind in your bed
             right when you turned
                          fifty.

             Never forget the scenery
of nightmare—
             that horse ridden
like a piece of luggage
over the curve of red earth.

Ah, to live at the equator.
To quell
the centipede,
             the scorpion,
and all the others who occupy
             the mansion

                          whose windows gaze
                          upon
the chlorine blue
             of a pool
                          where, each afternoon
after four o’ clock
the lovers come
             to ply their wares.