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A Magazine of Poetry by Women

ANN L. ZOLLER

Winter 1987

PIECEWORK is published four times a year. Subscriptions are $12 per year for individuals, $16 for libraries
and institutions. A free copy of PIECEWORK will be
furnished, on request, to the libraries of prisons and/ or
mental institutions. Single copy price if $4. Address all
correspondene to PIECEWORK, Red Dirt Press, Inc.,
P.O. Box 60693, Oklahoma City, OK 73146.

PIECEWORK
A MAGAZINE OF POETRY BY WOMEN
WINTER 1987
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2

Editors: Ann Carlton, Marian Hulsey, Abigail Keegan
Production: Elaine Barton, Eloise Dycus, Martha Hayes, Marian Hulsey
Distribution: Eloise Dycus, Nancy Viviani
Business Manager: Loral Reeves

Red Dirt Press, Inc., is the result of the vision of eight women who wanted to provide more publication opportunities for
women. The publication of this magazine of women's poetry,
aptly named PIECEWORK, which draws on all the images of
women's work that is done "by the piece," is dedicated to all
the women who write poetry, sometimes in spite of their lives
and families.

Published by Red Dirt Press, Inc.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
°Copyright 1987 by Red Dirt Press, Inc.
No part of this publication may be copied
or reproduced without written permission
UCO Women's Research & BGLTQt CcaMI'

100 N. University Dr
Edmond, OK 73034

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Poems by Featured Artist, Ann L. Zoller
"Dixieland Jazz on the Lawn" .................................................. 5
"After Love" ............................................................................. 6
"Particular Wind" ..................................................................... .7
"A Familiar Region" ..................................................................8
"My Story, From Inside This Place" ......... :.............................. 9
"Skins of the Cat" ................ .............. ................................... .10
"Transition" by Judith Durbin ...................................................... 12
"Untitled" by Kathryn Bell .......................................................... 12
"Winter Solstice" by Margie Snowden North ............................... 13
"Winter" by Jill Toler ................................................ ..................14
"Dia De Los Muertes" by Susan L. Smith ................................... 15
"Wild Geese" by Jill Toler .............. ., ........... ... ............................ ls
"Ghosts" by Sharon E. Martin ..................................................... 18
"Broken Dreams" by Helen Hinkle ......... .. .... ... ............................. 19
"The Sisters" by Renata Treitel.. ....................................... .. .... 20
"In a Brown Calfskin Box" by Susan A. VanSchuyver ................ 21
"Volumes" by Jat ......................................................................... 22
"The Luxury of Guilt" by Mary McAnally ................................... 23
"Notes on My Last Attempt to Communi~ate with My
Ex-Husband" by Mary McAnally ............................................. 24
"Mirror In1ages" by Pamela Fitzgerald ......................................... 25
-To My Aunt" by Cindy Sharp .................................................... 26
"'The End of Her Sordid Love Affair" by Delores McDaniel.. .... 28
"Eve" by Porter Brundage .............. ........... ................................. 29
"Night Happenings" by Debbie Bouziden ...................................... 30
"Saxo-phony" by Valerie Michelon ............................................... 31
"Labyrinthian" by Susan L. Smith ............................................... 32
"Electric Dream" by Valerie Michelon ........................................ 34

2, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

"work" by Brenda Catron-Grieves ................................. ..... ..... ..... 36
"archangels in the alley" by Kathryn Bell.. .................... .... ... ..... 37
"Still Life with Windows" by Beazley Kanost.. ........................... 38
"Taraxacum Dens-Leonis" by Jill Holmes .............................. ....... 39
"Antelope Hills, Western Oklahoma" by Diane Glancy .. ............. .. 40
"Tree's End" by Judith Durbin .................................................. .. 41
"Dandelion" by Delphine Oberst ................................................... 41
Poetry for Kids ...
"Jonathan and Claire" by Delphine Oberst .................................. 42
... and by Kids
"Untitled" by Lauren Barnes ......... .............................................. .43
"Bad Cat" by Lauren Barnes ....................................................... 44

Works in this issue that were published previously are
here republished with permission of the authors.

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 3

FEATURED ARTIST--ANN L. ZOLLER
The poet featured in this issue is Ann L. Zoller, who is
enrolled in the graduate program of the University of
Tulsa's School of Letters. She has served as assistant
poetry editor of NIMROD since 1984.
Ann has published two books, ANSWERS FROM THE
BOWING MOON and NEW PONY ON A CAROUSEL,
both of which won awards. She has been published in
numerous magazines and in several anthologies, including
AMERICAN POETRY ANTHOLOGY and TOUCHING FIRE
(Harper and Row).
When asked how she produces so much work, Ann says
that it is because she writes every day, and adds that
she does so because she is "addicted to the creative
fire."
She then explains that this creative fire is
another level of her consciousness--"all mind, reason
and passion entwined as one."
Because Ann is the kind of writer who "fires" the creative spark in other writers, we wish to thank her for
the interest in poetry she encourages, and recognize
the contribution she has made to this region.
Cover photo by Ann Carlton

4, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

DIXIELAND JAZZ ON THE LAWN
People on the lawn and the old men play jazz.
The tree like a gaunt man marks my place
in the thin night.
Sounds spill in front of the sunroom
as though the Chinese urn held music.
An old lover on the blanket with me.
It's a night we used to touch and now
touch again as different people.
That solemn note under the moon.
He is with a woman on this blanket
who is a friend of mine.
Here is the real world,
where lovers change and try on new people like pretty shoes
and the world goes on and nothing matters.
Notes from the oboe and the long horn
sound the same in the dark
whether we hear this song on this lawn
or some other place where old men make music.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 5

AFTER LOVE
First it was desire, the whorl into the vortex
of the skin.

I wonder if we ever had intimacy,

the string that chokes breath
and blinds with the lantern's strength.
You see it freed me to have loved you
and let you walk away in sun
without assigning blame, hurling recriminations.
I learned that spider webs fall away
blunt-ended in release, hardly
noticing the free fall to the ground.
An ache that adds a notch
to the heart, the ring
of more year.

It is such a relief

to know I am the substance and you,
a separate light.

--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

6, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

PARTICULAR WIND
We always talk into the wind,
words lost in the wind like
heavy birds fighting updrafts
coming off fog over the river.
I walk the •dusty path
by the confusion of water
and strain to catch words-go now
out of the black current of air
into morning, seine
berries off the wind.
Your eyes store history,
a touch of candles that were mine.
I need rest from the commotion of love.
It will never be the same.
Love moves like wind, the restless water.
Hollow words stop
and fall in this particular wind.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 7

A FAMILIAR REGION
Oystershells for the chickens,
chips of the sea tossed up here
in Oklahoma, the farm orderly as rows of corn. My hand
reaches under the warm breast
of the chicken for eggs.
I watch her eye, ready to run.
Sometimes I find eggs without a shell,
in a membrane, bouncy and tough.
I stare into the sack
and the egg sloshes like a water ball,
your face in the yolk.
I mourn your passing into womanhood.
That day when you know who you are
and you must leave,
oystershell in your pocket,
the wind on your back
and yellow in the air.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

8, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

MY STORY, FROM INSIDE THIS PLACE
The wind never broke that winter,
the winter of '47 when wheat surrendered
and crops failed. Your father
pacing ankle deep in curls of dirt.
I see you gliding on the old rope swing
back of the toolshed, that day
the grapevine choked the oak fence
and we found the cats limp.

It was the wind, the echo in my head,
the way it made everything hollow.
Here within bedlam's walls,
within these locks I have no fear,
the wall cocoons around me.
No wind, no sick child with croup.
I have air to breathe
and white noise like a lullaby
from another field.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 9

SKINS OF THE CAT
I did not ask for death
yet it came on slabs of night.
Once I climbed the boxelder,
nailing steps from shingles
as I escaped to treetops.
I am a cat, dying when I need to leave.
Layers of fur, hide, and flesh
chewed by you.
The yellow storn,
with its rush of clouds
and the black dew of winter.
Bacon burns on the stove
and I run crying, fire.
Your hands throw me
into flames.
Tears like cat-eyes.
Body into smoke, floating.
One skin sloughs
and I bounce into another.
I close tight as a grave.

10, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

Death comes whenever the moon splinters.
My feet leave smudges,
my voice gives no sound.
Black kites appear,
their tails are rags of dresses I need.
Clothes fly in the wind, in front,
to the side, out of reach.
Whiskers are needles in my dreams.
I need to fashion a house high in a tree
that knows me and wait,
wait for the sun to fill my eyes,
for the moon to find my body.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 11

TRANSITION

Snow
from leaden skies
spirals downward, dances
on noonday fields still stubbled
by summer's wheat, on faces of children
upturned
to winter
--Judith Durbin
Midwest City

UNTITLED

We danced at winter's masquerade
unaware of the trembling hours
at the windows sheathed in ice
We chased a thousand winds across the passion
of a countryside alive with van gogh vision,
Watching the legends in your eyes,
I named you in colors of turquoise and jet ...
--Kathryn Bell
Beggs

12, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

WINTER SOLSTICE
Miniature wildwood of
dwarfish shinnery,
winter-dead,
set in a sea of nut-brown acorns and
cast-off leaves
that scatter outward through wisps of
buffalo grass, color-drained wildflowers.
Under lead skies
quail scurry into that earthtone sanctuary,
the only stirring of life.
They blend motionlessly.
All earth is
quiescent, an unending monotone of
dull browns and greys,
awaiting in silence that re-awakening
which comes with spring.
--Margie Snowden North
Erick

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 13

WINTER

Winter falls
wrapping its wings over my eyes
filling my lids with white
a gauze
dimming my sight.

Through the night snow gently falls.
My body cradles deeper
between soft pillows
unearthing a comfort within these drifts
smothering the voice of my soul.
I awake,
yet I sleep
among shadows spreading across my path
where no fire has cast them.
Winter has fallen
silencing the river streaming below.
--Jill Toler
Deerfield, Massachussetts
(formerly, Muskogee, OK)

14, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

,
DIA DE LOS MUERTES
Winter limbs claw my window
as I awaken to madness,
the memory of a young woman,
who, kneeling to the hope of cleansing and rebirth
crawled toward the cathedral,
rising up from the heart of Mexico City.
Yet as her knees bled,
staining her march toward sacral walls
gargoyled with Gabriels and Michaels,
trumpeting shelter in a plundered New World,
the cathedral iridesced
a peacock glow of Quetzacoatl.
When she held her rosary and prayed to funereal marble,
an aftershock five hundred years deep
heaved like one stricken by the plague, like
Jesuits monumenting Montezuma's death.
How much pain can this body bear, how much blood
from tortured knees?
The earth keened .
She thought she smelled burning feathers
as the cathedral sank
inexorably downward into the ancient lake,
the primordial ocean that tolls dark waters
where all things inevitably return.
And falling to the pavement,
she heard the Aztec in the voices of the mestizo,
raging against the gargoyled angels
whose real aegis is
the whip
and the thorny crown .
--Susan L. Smith
Norman
PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 15

WILD GEESE
The geese fly low tonight.
Wild baying circles the valley
stretching thin echoes over the mountains.
We pause:
your eyP.s fingering still the pages
while I move to watch from a window
the flock forging a line
a shadow wings the moon.
Behind the fields stubbled
with dry stalks dimly lit,
wild geeses swoop to the pond below.
You lean into the fire's warmth.
I am alone when tuning my ear
to beasts skimming the pool
thrusting webbed feet forward.
Breaking the surface,
brown feathered tufts glide
sending circles of water
lapping over the shore.
Liquid bands linger back
sealing the flock within one silken skein.
Wild birds wrap themselves
in down feathered walls.

16, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

We know the glory of beasts,
drifting in sleep
silver vapors steam before the morning stirs,
when each spreads open the shelter
arched wings: feathers beating upon water
lifting splendor above the mist
exposed.
We know the horror of the wild!
Does it matter how we have chosen to deliver
ourselves from the explosion of the hunter's gun
that's sure to tear through the dawn?
Tonight, I struggle to sail beyond the fields
to rest if only in a moment
among the wings of the wild.
Can I blame you?
You who choose not to listen to the distance
fearing to lose what already we've lost.
I only touch what I imagine
and hope in the last breath of this day
our bodies folding one into the other
will rise then fall
and sleep under the wings of wild geese.
--Jill Toler
Deerfield, Massachussetts
(formerly, Muskogee, OK)

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 17

GHOSTS
Shuttered window dairy bar
On the edge of town
Once saw farmers' daughters driving by
In brand new Mustangs
And tight Levis
Stopping to chat with somebody's son.
Shuttered window dairy bar,
Tell of the dramas
Set on the stage beneath your once-bright awning,
And the wholesome drama
Inside.

You were a dream,

Somebody's dream of a good life in a good town.
Shuttered window dairy bar,
Your plyboard shutters groan
And your ghosts sigh.
--Sharon E. Martin
Cushing

18, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

BROKEN DREAMS

Unpainted and sunbleached
the old house stands.
Dust devils swirl in the air.
The yard is parched and cracked
no grass grows
no flowers bloom
Even the weeds are browned
and curled
The barn stands empty
and still
The field mice have gone.
The windmill is broken and still
but no matter
The well went dry long ago.
The sun unmercifully beats down
on someone's broken dreams!
--Helen Hinkle
Duncan

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 19

TWO SISTERS
Your laughter
summons the woman who never was a child
and I, who lived holding back words,
rise.
I had three grapes when I was a child.
"Choose the largest," I said to my sister.
I meant to keep the largest.
Her cruel laughter
pinned the last and smallest in my hand.
Then I stopped being a child.
When you laugh
I wind myself around you
finding comfort in the contact,
and in my contentment I bring you
the held-back words.
How do I know
you won't suddenly pull away,
spill my words like grapes,
let them roll, get crunched in the press?
Yet
I always wanted your laughter.
--Renata Treitel
Tulsa

20, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

IN A BROWN CALFSKIN BOX
I keep .time
in a brown calfskin box
on my dresser.
The memories of my life-my father's tie
given to me after his death,
my first poem,
a picture of my first love,
a crumbled name tag from
a conference in 1976,
my high school
graduation ring,
the expired passport
which went with me to Europe,
a rose from my wedding bouquet,
divorce papers, a small
wooden cat.
I keep time
in a brown calfskin box
on my dresser.
--Susan A. VanSchuyver
Oklahoma City

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 21

VOLUMES
Memories of days gone past
Fill the shelves of my mind
like books.
Each volume is full
Of chapters that
Outline my life.
Stories of places ...
People who have
Altered my destiny
Are mine to read and re-read.
You are in those volumes,
Story after story.
Your smile, touch,
Even your voice
Make up so many
Of my memories ...
Days gone past.
--Jat.
Grand Prairie, Texas

22, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

THE LUXURY OF GUILT

(for Carolyn Forche)
There was a woman who cried
forgive me deity for I have
sinned and am heartily
ashamed. I am unable to sleep
with a man and my thoughts
keep tapping on the curbstone
of def eat. My floors
are covered with newspapers and my scalp is crusted
with dirt. On this trip
my wheels betrayed a field mouse
and two turtles
stayed up-ended on the road
of no time no time to stop.
Forgive me for the woman
in my yard who calls
and moves away, the plant that
withers without water,
the food left wasted
on the table.
Forgive me because
we have become a country
where the only mortal
sin is despair
and the only cardinal
sin is silence.
--Mary McAnally
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 23

NOTES ON MY LAST ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH MY EX-HUSBAND
Never mind, my dear.
My thoughts now serve me better

than your touch, now
satisfy me more than you
(with your heavY entry,
your lying eyes).
You want me to convince
another woman she must love you,
regale her with my sighs
and heaving bosom,
tell her of past prowess,
future promise.
I see no more potential in your eyes,
my dear, and speak
no more of promise in your words.
Instead I search her face
for truth, for life, and
finding it, rest there with her,
our hearts forever lovers
on the prowl.
--Mary McAnally
Tulsa

24, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

MIRROR IMAGES

They will · not have the
mirror image
Whose shiny surface invites
inspection
Of each bump and blemish.
They embrace, instead, the
perfect match
Whose interchangeability is as
certain as earrings
Switched from ear to ear.
And so we, the perfect pair,
Cause wars
And rumors of wars
And earthquakes in divers places
And finally, the reddening of
the moon.
And the pairing of our bodies
Must be seen only,
As they say, through a glass,
darkly.
--Pamela Fitzgerald
Guthrie
PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 25

TO MY AUNT
(Dedicated to Norma Pralle)
I cried on my sister's shoulder;
The polished wood
was cold against my shaking back
and drone of comfort
was lost in the little girl's sobbing
in the front.
Her husband's hair
was grayer than I remembered,
his eyes puffy and red
behind glasses reflecting flowers
and a box in a blur.
My sister's words

fell on deaf ears
and racing thoughts
of accusations toward doctors
and family-and God,
if there was one.
The bell rang 61 times.
I shivered though my face was hot
as the face was revealed on the satin,
a look of peace fashioned there,
gray and thick with paint.
My tears were lost in the November rain,

unceasing since the death hour,
all falling to the mucky grass
beneath sinking high shoes.

26, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

I gave away my umbrella
at the graveside
when I stepped under the tent
with the other family mourners.
I stood weakly
on numbness and a chill
from the weather,
or the loss.
Again the comfort monotoned
his voice cracking now and then,
the closeness of a small church
lined his face and hollowed his eyes.
I saw tears escape my father's eyes
and I swallowed hard;
the pain in my throat
sucked for tears
long drained from my eyes.
When I walked, head down, from the canvas
a warmth, though slight,
fell across me
and the light caused my eyes to squint.
Still pain,
but the rain had gone.
--Cindy Sharp
Ponca City

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 27

THE END OF HER SORDID LOVE AFFAIR
Sweat oozed from the pores of the ghostly-colored tenement room.
A gagging stench of putrid garbage and stifling heat
Bludgeoned the tethered air.
Cockroaches swarmed over food-encrusted dishes.
Rats scurried in a frenzied ritual around the filthy room.
On a lopped-legged table maggots wiggled and wallowed
In a half-eaten hamburger.
Meretricious duds were strewn in a hugger:mugger way.
A tattered curtain clutched the open window frame.
Across the street, a bar's flashing neon sign richocheted
A distorted light on the disheveled, iron bed,
Exposing her sprawled, semi-nude body.
Once an exquisite ingenue who lusted for Jim Daniels and Lord Calvert,
Her passion for those previous, empty lovers opened
The wrong connections, causing a stream of faceless Johns
To flood her obscure past.
The High Priest of Snow now reigned as her mainliner, her supreme love,
Tattoos of his fixed visits marred her body.
An obsessive love for her deceptive gigolo now totally consumed her,
Being without him became unbearable---Convulsing her with a racking pain.
Supporting him became impossible with his insatiable demands.
Two nights ago she embraced her lothario for the last time.
Ah, that final kiss popped with purity.
She needed him no longer with her lungs bridled, her heart stilled,
And her thoughts silenced.
At last, her sordid love affair was over.
--Delores McDaniel
Harrah

28, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

EVE
wed

to scenes of fold and azure
in the empyrean sky
twilight splendor
and cosmic mists
on the horizon
stretching
to remember
a previous life
one is born
ancient wanderers
(universal observers)
time their chariot-race
while clouds roll below
they toss off
a secret
(to them it was never one)
a piece of dust
and air
come together
the unborn becomes real
--Porter Brundage
Oklahoma City

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 29

NIGHT HAPPENINGS
One lonely sob echoes from your darkened bedroom
I listen, when I hear nothing else, fall back to sleep.
Seconds later, I am awakened by small warm fingers touching my bare arm.
I force my eyes open, with the help of moon beams, see frumpled, curly
locks of hair and a tear-framed face.
"Bad dream?"
A nod is your response.
Sliding over, I throw back the sheet, pat the edge of the bed, and invite
you ~o crawl in beside me.
Your little bunnysuit is gone,
Only Darth Vader underwear and your birthday suit remain,
A reminder of the big boy you want so much to be.
Scooting close to me, you snuggle next to my night gown,
I feel your heart as it pounds in your small chest.
I wrap my arms around you, you place one of your hands in mme.
Words of comfort and a light kiss on your healthy cheek,
"It's all right. Mama's here."
Your heart-beat softens, no longer can I feel its hammering.
Secure, you drift off to sleep,
There is not a sound throughout the house, except your gentle breathing.
Your sleep is peaceful and soon mine will be too.
--Debbie Bouziden
Edmond

30, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

SAXO-PHONY
The deep voice of a saxophone
Resounds in my ears and vibrates
Softly, like t he waves at my feet;
It moves my heart, like this sunset,
Yellow, then orange, and red,
On the ocean of my dreams.
It was then. I was in love with him.
If you hear the strain of a saxophone
In the night, you may recall the past
Memory of this unique instant,
As I do now; you may make it come
True with the power of your imagination,
As I do now; you may also make it last
For ever: recreate a world around it,
Print it to defy eternity, and it will
Live beyond the words, colors, textures,
Or sounds.
If I could tune a song, you would
Hear the deep voice of a saxophone.
If I would limn a painting, you could
See the sunset, and the sea.
If I could carve marble or bronze, you would
Touch a man's body.
But I only write words, so you can
Dream with me the romance
Of a love story in warm summer
With sunset, sea, and saxophone
Indeed.
--Valerie Michelon
Norman

UOOWomen'11tMUdlaBOLTQ+eew. prncEWORK, Winter 1987, 3]

100 N. University Dr
Edmond, OK 73034

LABYRINTHIAN

1
Superstition Mountains.
That's where we grew up,
but I always feared the spiny mouth
of treasure tales in the chaparral
and swallowing depths of the myth of the
Lost Dutchman Mine.
As adults we moved away, apart.
Yet last year we tried to drive home, together,
until we stopped at Lena's Cafe and
I saw the cigarette burns on your arms.
Though you pulled your sleeves down fast
to cover your scars, I saw,
through the scalded coffee you drank,
the pain of self-inflicted isolation.
You were silent, but your eyes
glowed as they moved,
...igarette embers in a sleepless dark,
blind flashlights down the trackless labyrinth
of myth and fable.

32, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

2
Seeker of fable and treasure,
you were my sister once.
We sat together as children
on the pinnacle of Twin Mountain
and watched the sky tangle about the peaks;
But now you are lost to me,
you, desperate for the scent of the boundless,
you, who follows the spirals of an endless web
journeying, not accompanied by my perfume,
but by the stench
of burning, tobacco and your own flesh,
alone.
--Susan L. Smith
Norman

PIECEWORK. Winter 1987, 33

ELECTRIC DREAM

Your drink has the color of the sun
sitting on ice cube like an
orange red golden in my hand.
I swallow the cube, the ice, the sun,
and gold, then leave you there alone
with single drink and only red.
And the orange left in no hand
turns your nights into electric dream
where I drink the red golden sun.

ii
Your eyes have the color of the sky
in silver Spring when I defy
you through space in search for freedom.
I lose it in light gray blue sky
when you spy me through silver moon I
turn your nights into electric dream
Where you find gray space but no freedom
in no eyes because Spring bloomed blue my sky
when I found another--don't ask me why.

34, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

iii
Yet, my life has the color of your nights
and when I close your eyes we see sunlights
with red golden sun and silver moon.
I find it in ice cubed drink one night
and stop searching for other delight:
you turned my life into electric dream
That we together share beneath the moon
with no other, just you, me, and the night,
making love in gray blue space under golden light.
--Valerie Michelon
Norman

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 35

work

practical people
know the meaning of work
know the meaning of the word tired
when your hands bleed in some catmery
to put tomatoes and peaches in small cans
and bags of cut spinach in someone's freezer
it is part of the fob
to get great knots on your hands
at the nursery where the roses are clipped
to make them perfect for people with tract houses
this is expected, this way of complaint the body makes
you don't say anything though
you remember it is better to work
that canneries and greenhouses
are better than the chicken processing factory
Siloam Springs is a .fong drive
and the cold in the plant soaks through your bone
blood and viscera shine in the light
you work all night and when you get home
you don't sleep at first
maybe, it's daylight when you lie down
all the dreams ate red
you wake to soaked sheets
maybe, it's that time of the month
maybe, you've been stained
and you won't eat chicken, anymore
it's better to be in the fields
than in the factory
but, there's extra money for movies
and school clothes

36, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

it's steady income when winter comes
maybe, you'll be used to cold l-y then
when they ask what do you do
you say a little of this and that
you don't say you kill chickens
on an assembly line
--Brenda Catron-Grieves
Oklahoma City

archangels in the alley
Weaving stories at night
unraveling them at dawn
on the cold cobblestone of dreams ...
The city is alive tonight
and fused in flesh,
the designs of old women in sunday hose,
harlequins of children
taken captive in the arcade
the latin lover
hand on the trigger
fires myths into the young girls
laughing ...
we are all outlaws of minor fame
awaiting revelation
and archangels in the alley ...
--Kathryn Bell
Beggs
•PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 37

STILL LIFE WITH WINDOWS
I see
a rod
of blue, flaky light
in the dark
outside
my

second story
window.
I know what it is.
I look
at an angle
through
the window
at an on
television screen
at an angle
to me
in someone else's
apartment
in the dark.
--Beazley Kanost
Norman

38, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

TARAXACUM DENS-LEONIS
You dandys,
golden, disorderly
earth buggers.
Before the first lawnmower,
the chemicals,
the sweating gardner's palms,
you envelop us.
Beneath the blades
you lie low
precocious, summoning.
We approach you
with a testy attraction.
Your buttons
become cocoons
sun seekers, and rise,
teeth of lion,
thrusting stalks.

H. Bosch globes
of down
_ cushion on top of
rubbery limbs.
signaling children
to kick, blow
wishes, lineage.
Miracles can't be
this common.
--Jill Holmes
Stillwater

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 39

ANTELOPE HILLS, WESTERN OKLAHOMA
Out here these cliffs reach with a rock
overhang like a barn eave from which a hoist
lifts hay bales to the loft and we hear
the round sound of wind
against the ear cut into by the pulley squeak
and then only in haying or when bundles
drop to cows in snow.
It is cold here.
Fence posts climb onto the road and barns
point north.
Rosary beads of frozen rain hang from wires.
A white mother and Indian father dance
inharmonious tunes
as we plow furrows between our fingers.
The buzzard and blizzard.
Pan lids of wind over our ears
close out dogs barking at raccoon or opossum.
The sheets tap their toes in mud before we
get them off the line.
These cliffs
rise out of the flat land, the heritage I tightrope
while you hold me, Egg Man, the yoke of sun
still in its shell.
A gay wind, loose ferris wheel,
but the circus on the faded billet never came.
Always as a girl I wanted to see black bears
and painted Indians,
the fat lady who hung her stained laundry on the line-White lights on tent tops
tipping slightly like a milkpail across the land.
--Diane Glancy
Tulsa

40, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

TREE'S END
Leave the Mississippi and climb
the Ozark hills. Land ripples to
the west like a night's used sheet. A
road runs through shaded Arkansas,
flees across the Nations. Out there,
at the world's edge, the red earth waits
where the sky is never ending,
where the grass outruns the trees.
-.Judith Durbin
Midwest City

DANDELION
My root is deep

Not by desire
I'd love to pull it free
But being deep
And being strong
I cannot cease to be.
I'd love to be a different sort
With delicate perfume
And for just one fantastic night
I'd offer up my bloom.
For who recalls a homely weed
That brings them no delight
And who forgets a lovely bloom
That lasts a single night.
--Delphine Oberst
Norman

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 41

JONATHAN AND CLAIRE
Butterflies and tigers, how can
Tigers are so tough and strong,
This is the assumption made by
who haven't heard the story of

they compare?
butterflies like air.
people everywhere,
Jonathan and Claire.

Now Jonathan was a mighty beast, so strong and debonaire.
You wouldn't think this jungle cat would ever feel or care.
It's true he roamed the jungle floor, stalking far and wide,
but only Claire the butterfly could understand his cry.
She knew he cried 'cause he was bound to r-oam the jungle floor,
but in his heart his fondest wish was learning how to soar.
Now Claire knew all the ways to soar, it was her way of !if e.
She knew the power of the heights to soothe a heart of strife .
But how was she to show this beast that she could ease his pain,
for he saw !if e as thunderstorms, and she saw gentle rain.
One day, 'twas in the Summertime, while he lay in repose,
she made a brave decision, and she landed on his nose.
He opened his two green eyes, and did a double-take,
and gave her such a steady look her little heart did quake.
It was strength she saw in Jonathan, freedom he saw in Claire.
He was bound upon the land, and she was swept by air.
So on this day a bond was formed that they could not deny.
He would now stalk proudly as she would flutter by.
He would loan his strength to her, and she would, in return,
show him how to lift his soul as his sweet heart had yearned.
And if there be a God somewhere, and He should chance to spy
this handsome beast upon the ground and his little butterfly,
I'm sure that He would only smile and whisper out a prayer,
for His two loving children, Jonathan and Claire.
--Delphine Oberst
Norman

42, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

Sunsbin) sunshine,

on my face.
I am on a rock,
What a place!
Gleaming through the blue sky,
Just you, ladybug, you and I.

--Lauren Barnes, age 12
Edmond
(written at age 10)

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 43

BAD CAT
My bad cat is bad,

As bad as an old lad.
Nip, nip, nip, nip, nip, nip.
She would chew on my socks,
Break my locks.
I would try to hold her,
And of course she would jump out of my arms.
She would smell my friend's hand,
And bite it.
But those are just the good things about her.
I HAVE heard WORSE.
--Lauren Barnes, age 12
Edmond
(written at age 10)

44, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

Red Dirt Press, Inc., a women-owned and womenoperated publishing company, is seeking manuscripts by
women writers. Novels, volumes of poetry and books of
short stories will be accepted. Send your typed, doublespaced (except for poetry) manuscripts for consideration, along with a •SASE, to Manuscripts, Red Dirt
Press, Inc., P.O. Box 60693, Oklahoma City, OK 73146.

SUBMISSION DEADLINES: February 15 for spring issue; May
15 for summer issue; August 15 for fall issue; November 15 for
winter issue.

SUBMISSION POLICY: PIECEWORK accepts submissions of
poetry by women, particularly from Oklahoma and the south
central region. Payment is in one contributor's copy, with Red
Dirt Press, Inc., retaining first rights only. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but please inform us of this. Submissions should be typed and accompanied by a brief biographical
statement of the poet and a SASE. We will report within three
months.

WINTER 1987
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2



OIC"C 1 111 ftl,

t' I ,.;L~.: w,IK "'
A Magazine of Poetry by Women

ANN L. ZOLLER

Winter 1987

PIECEWORK is published four times a year. Subscriptions are $12 per year for individuals, $16 for libraries
and institutions. A free copy of PIECEWORK will be
furnished, on request, to the libraries of prisons and/ or
mental institutions. Single copy price if $4. Address all
correspondene to PIECEWORK, Red Dirt Press, Inc.,
P.O. Box 60693, Oklahoma City, OK 73146.

PIECEWORK
A MAGAZINE OF POETRY BY WOMEN
WINTER 1987
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2

Editors: Ann Carlton, Marian Hulsey, Abigail Keegan
Production: Elaine Barton, Eloise Dycus, Martha Hayes, Marian Hulsey
Distribution: Eloise Dycus, Nancy Viviani
Business Manager: Loral Reeves

Red Dirt Press, Inc., is the result of the vision of eight women who wanted to provide more publication opportunities for
women. The publication of this magazine of women's poetry,
aptly named PIECEWORK, which draws on all the images of
women's work that is done "by the piece," is dedicated to all
the women who write poetry, sometimes in spite of their lives
and families.

Published by Red Dirt Press, Inc.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
°Copyright 1987 by Red Dirt Press, Inc.
No part of this publication may be copied
or reproduced without written permission
UCO Women's Research & BGLTQt CcaMI'

100 N. University Dr
Edmond, OK 73034

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Poems by Featured Artist, Ann L. Zoller
"Dixieland Jazz on the Lawn" .................................................. 5
"After Love" ............................................................................. 6
"Particular Wind" ..................................................................... .7
"A Familiar Region" ..................................................................8
"My Story, From Inside This Place" ......... :.............................. 9
"Skins of the Cat" ................ .............. ................................... .10
"Transition" by Judith Durbin ...................................................... 12
"Untitled" by Kathryn Bell .......................................................... 12
"Winter Solstice" by Margie Snowden North ............................... 13
"Winter" by Jill Toler ................................................ ..................14
"Dia De Los Muertes" by Susan L. Smith ................................... 15
"Wild Geese" by Jill Toler .............. ., ........... ... ............................ ls
"Ghosts" by Sharon E. Martin ..................................................... 18
"Broken Dreams" by Helen Hinkle ......... .. .... ... ............................. 19
"The Sisters" by Renata Treitel.. ....................................... .. .... 20
"In a Brown Calfskin Box" by Susan A. VanSchuyver ................ 21
"Volumes" by Jat ......................................................................... 22
"The Luxury of Guilt" by Mary McAnally ................................... 23
"Notes on My Last Attempt to Communi~ate with My
Ex-Husband" by Mary McAnally ............................................. 24
"Mirror In1ages" by Pamela Fitzgerald ......................................... 25
-To My Aunt" by Cindy Sharp .................................................... 26
"'The End of Her Sordid Love Affair" by Delores McDaniel.. .... 28
"Eve" by Porter Brundage .............. ........... ................................. 29
"Night Happenings" by Debbie Bouziden ...................................... 30
"Saxo-phony" by Valerie Michelon ............................................... 31
"Labyrinthian" by Susan L. Smith ............................................... 32
"Electric Dream" by Valerie Michelon ........................................ 34

2, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

"work" by Brenda Catron-Grieves ................................. ..... ..... ..... 36
"archangels in the alley" by Kathryn Bell.. .................... .... ... ..... 37
"Still Life with Windows" by Beazley Kanost.. ........................... 38
"Taraxacum Dens-Leonis" by Jill Holmes .............................. ....... 39
"Antelope Hills, Western Oklahoma" by Diane Glancy .. ............. .. 40
"Tree's End" by Judith Durbin .................................................. .. 41
"Dandelion" by Delphine Oberst ................................................... 41
Poetry for Kids ...
"Jonathan and Claire" by Delphine Oberst .................................. 42
... and by Kids
"Untitled" by Lauren Barnes ......... .............................................. .43
"Bad Cat" by Lauren Barnes ....................................................... 44

Works in this issue that were published previously are
here republished with permission of the authors.

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 3

FEATURED ARTIST--ANN L. ZOLLER
The poet featured in this issue is Ann L. Zoller, who is
enrolled in the graduate program of the University of
Tulsa's School of Letters. She has served as assistant
poetry editor of NIMROD since 1984.
Ann has published two books, ANSWERS FROM THE
BOWING MOON and NEW PONY ON A CAROUSEL,
both of which won awards. She has been published in
numerous magazines and in several anthologies, including
AMERICAN POETRY ANTHOLOGY and TOUCHING FIRE
(Harper and Row).
When asked how she produces so much work, Ann says
that it is because she writes every day, and adds that
she does so because she is "addicted to the creative
fire."
She then explains that this creative fire is
another level of her consciousness--"all mind, reason
and passion entwined as one."
Because Ann is the kind of writer who "fires" the creative spark in other writers, we wish to thank her for
the interest in poetry she encourages, and recognize
the contribution she has made to this region.
Cover photo by Ann Carlton

4, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

DIXIELAND JAZZ ON THE LAWN
People on the lawn and the old men play jazz.
The tree like a gaunt man marks my place
in the thin night.
Sounds spill in front of the sunroom
as though the Chinese urn held music.
An old lover on the blanket with me.
It's a night we used to touch and now
touch again as different people.
That solemn note under the moon.
He is with a woman on this blanket
who is a friend of mine.
Here is the real world,
where lovers change and try on new people like pretty shoes
and the world goes on and nothing matters.
Notes from the oboe and the long horn
sound the same in the dark
whether we hear this song on this lawn
or some other place where old men make music.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 5

AFTER LOVE
First it was desire, the whorl into the vortex
of the skin.

I wonder if we ever had intimacy,

the string that chokes breath
and blinds with the lantern's strength.
You see it freed me to have loved you
and let you walk away in sun
without assigning blame, hurling recriminations.
I learned that spider webs fall away
blunt-ended in release, hardly
noticing the free fall to the ground.
An ache that adds a notch
to the heart, the ring
of more year.

It is such a relief

to know I am the substance and you,
a separate light.

--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

6, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

PARTICULAR WIND
We always talk into the wind,
words lost in the wind like
heavy birds fighting updrafts
coming off fog over the river.
I walk the •dusty path
by the confusion of water
and strain to catch words-go now
out of the black current of air
into morning, seine
berries off the wind.
Your eyes store history,
a touch of candles that were mine.
I need rest from the commotion of love.
It will never be the same.
Love moves like wind, the restless water.
Hollow words stop
and fall in this particular wind.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 7

A FAMILIAR REGION
Oystershells for the chickens,
chips of the sea tossed up here
in Oklahoma, the farm orderly as rows of corn. My hand
reaches under the warm breast
of the chicken for eggs.
I watch her eye, ready to run.
Sometimes I find eggs without a shell,
in a membrane, bouncy and tough.
I stare into the sack
and the egg sloshes like a water ball,
your face in the yolk.
I mourn your passing into womanhood.
That day when you know who you are
and you must leave,
oystershell in your pocket,
the wind on your back
and yellow in the air.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

8, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

MY STORY, FROM INSIDE THIS PLACE
The wind never broke that winter,
the winter of '47 when wheat surrendered
and crops failed. Your father
pacing ankle deep in curls of dirt.
I see you gliding on the old rope swing
back of the toolshed, that day
the grapevine choked the oak fence
and we found the cats limp.

It was the wind, the echo in my head,
the way it made everything hollow.
Here within bedlam's walls,
within these locks I have no fear,
the wall cocoons around me.
No wind, no sick child with croup.
I have air to breathe
and white noise like a lullaby
from another field.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 9

SKINS OF THE CAT
I did not ask for death
yet it came on slabs of night.
Once I climbed the boxelder,
nailing steps from shingles
as I escaped to treetops.
I am a cat, dying when I need to leave.
Layers of fur, hide, and flesh
chewed by you.
The yellow storn,
with its rush of clouds
and the black dew of winter.
Bacon burns on the stove
and I run crying, fire.
Your hands throw me
into flames.
Tears like cat-eyes.
Body into smoke, floating.
One skin sloughs
and I bounce into another.
I close tight as a grave.

10, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

Death comes whenever the moon splinters.
My feet leave smudges,
my voice gives no sound.
Black kites appear,
their tails are rags of dresses I need.
Clothes fly in the wind, in front,
to the side, out of reach.
Whiskers are needles in my dreams.
I need to fashion a house high in a tree
that knows me and wait,
wait for the sun to fill my eyes,
for the moon to find my body.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 11

TRANSITION

Snow
from leaden skies
spirals downward, dances
on noonday fields still stubbled
by summer's wheat, on faces of children
upturned
to winter
--Judith Durbin
Midwest City

UNTITLED

We danced at winter's masquerade
unaware of the trembling hours
at the windows sheathed in ice
We chased a thousand winds across the passion
of a countryside alive with van gogh vision,
Watching the legends in your eyes,
I named you in colors of turquoise and jet ...
--Kathryn Bell
Beggs

12, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

WINTER SOLSTICE
Miniature wildwood of
dwarfish shinnery,
winter-dead,
set in a sea of nut-brown acorns and
cast-off leaves
that scatter outward through wisps of
buffalo grass, color-drained wildflowers.
Under lead skies
quail scurry into that earthtone sanctuary,
the only stirring of life.
They blend motionlessly.
All earth is
quiescent, an unending monotone of
dull browns and greys,
awaiting in silence that re-awakening
which comes with spring.
--Margie Snowden North
Erick

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 13

WINTER

Winter falls
wrapping its wings over my eyes
filling my lids with white
a gauze
dimming my sight.

Through the night snow gently falls.
My body cradles deeper
between soft pillows
unearthing a comfort within these drifts
smothering the voice of my soul.
I awake,
yet I sleep
among shadows spreading across my path
where no fire has cast them.
Winter has fallen
silencing the river streaming below.
--Jill Toler
Deerfield, Massachussetts
(formerly, Muskogee, OK)

14, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

,
DIA DE LOS MUERTES
Winter limbs claw my window
as I awaken to madness,
the memory of a young woman,
who, kneeling to the hope of cleansing and rebirth
crawled toward the cathedral,
rising up from the heart of Mexico City.
Yet as her knees bled,
staining her march toward sacral walls
gargoyled with Gabriels and Michaels,
trumpeting shelter in a plundered New World,
the cathedral iridesced
a peacock glow of Quetzacoatl.
When she held her rosary and prayed to funereal marble,
an aftershock five hundred years deep
heaved like one stricken by the plague, like
Jesuits monumenting Montezuma's death.
How much pain can this body bear, how much blood
from tortured knees?
The earth keened .
She thought she smelled burning feathers
as the cathedral sank
inexorably downward into the ancient lake,
the primordial ocean that tolls dark waters
where all things inevitably return.
And falling to the pavement,
she heard the Aztec in the voices of the mestizo,
raging against the gargoyled angels
whose real aegis is
the whip
and the thorny crown .
--Susan L. Smith
Norman
PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 15

WILD GEESE
The geese fly low tonight.
Wild baying circles the valley
stretching thin echoes over the mountains.
We pause:
your eyP.s fingering still the pages
while I move to watch from a window
the flock forging a line
a shadow wings the moon.
Behind the fields stubbled
with dry stalks dimly lit,
wild geeses swoop to the pond below.
You lean into the fire's warmth.
I am alone when tuning my ear
to beasts skimming the pool
thrusting webbed feet forward.
Breaking the surface,
brown feathered tufts glide
sending circles of water
lapping over the shore.
Liquid bands linger back
sealing the flock within one silken skein.
Wild birds wrap themselves
in down feathered walls.

16, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

We know the glory of beasts,
drifting in sleep
silver vapors steam before the morning stirs,
when each spreads open the shelter
arched wings: feathers beating upon water
lifting splendor above the mist
exposed.
We know the horror of the wild!
Does it matter how we have chosen to deliver
ourselves from the explosion of the hunter's gun
that's sure to tear through the dawn?
Tonight, I struggle to sail beyond the fields
to rest if only in a moment
among the wings of the wild.
Can I blame you?
You who choose not to listen to the distance
fearing to lose what already we've lost.
I only touch what I imagine
and hope in the last breath of this day
our bodies folding one into the other
will rise then fall
and sleep under the wings of wild geese.
--Jill Toler
Deerfield, Massachussetts
(formerly, Muskogee, OK)

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 17

GHOSTS
Shuttered window dairy bar
On the edge of town
Once saw farmers' daughters driving by
In brand new Mustangs
And tight Levis
Stopping to chat with somebody's son.
Shuttered window dairy bar,
Tell of the dramas
Set on the stage beneath your once-bright awning,
And the wholesome drama
Inside.

You were a dream,

Somebody's dream of a good life in a good town.
Shuttered window dairy bar,
Your plyboard shutters groan
And your ghosts sigh.
--Sharon E. Martin
Cushing

18, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

BROKEN DREAMS

Unpainted and sunbleached
the old house stands.
Dust devils swirl in the air.
The yard is parched and cracked
no grass grows
no flowers bloom
Even the weeds are browned
and curled
The barn stands empty
and still
The field mice have gone.
The windmill is broken and still
but no matter
The well went dry long ago.
The sun unmercifully beats down
on someone's broken dreams!
--Helen Hinkle
Duncan

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 19

TWO SISTERS
Your laughter
summons the woman who never was a child
and I, who lived holding back words,
rise.
I had three grapes when I was a child.
"Choose the largest," I said to my sister.
I meant to keep the largest.
Her cruel laughter
pinned the last and smallest in my hand.
Then I stopped being a child.
When you laugh
I wind myself around you
finding comfort in the contact,
and in my contentment I bring you
the held-back words.
How do I know
you won't suddenly pull away,
spill my words like grapes,
let them roll, get crunched in the press?
Yet
I always wanted your laughter.
--Renata Treitel
Tulsa

20, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

IN A BROWN CALFSKIN BOX
I keep .time
in a brown calfskin box
on my dresser.
The memories of my life-my father's tie
given to me after his death,
my first poem,
a picture of my first love,
a crumbled name tag from
a conference in 1976,
my high school
graduation ring,
the expired passport
which went with me to Europe,
a rose from my wedding bouquet,
divorce papers, a small
wooden cat.
I keep time
in a brown calfskin box
on my dresser.
--Susan A. VanSchuyver
Oklahoma City

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 21

VOLUMES
Memories of days gone past
Fill the shelves of my mind
like books.
Each volume is full
Of chapters that
Outline my life.
Stories of places ...
People who have
Altered my destiny
Are mine to read and re-read.
You are in those volumes,
Story after story.
Your smile, touch,
Even your voice
Make up so many
Of my memories ...
Days gone past.
--Jat.
Grand Prairie, Texas

22, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

THE LUXURY OF GUILT

(for Carolyn Forche)
There was a woman who cried
forgive me deity for I have
sinned and am heartily
ashamed. I am unable to sleep
with a man and my thoughts
keep tapping on the curbstone
of def eat. My floors
are covered with newspapers and my scalp is crusted
with dirt. On this trip
my wheels betrayed a field mouse
and two turtles
stayed up-ended on the road
of no time no time to stop.
Forgive me for the woman
in my yard who calls
and moves away, the plant that
withers without water,
the food left wasted
on the table.
Forgive me because
we have become a country
where the only mortal
sin is despair
and the only cardinal
sin is silence.
--Mary McAnally
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 23

NOTES ON MY LAST ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH MY EX-HUSBAND
Never mind, my dear.
My thoughts now serve me better

than your touch, now
satisfy me more than you
(with your heavY entry,
your lying eyes).
You want me to convince
another woman she must love you,
regale her with my sighs
and heaving bosom,
tell her of past prowess,
future promise.
I see no more potential in your eyes,
my dear, and speak
no more of promise in your words.
Instead I search her face
for truth, for life, and
finding it, rest there with her,
our hearts forever lovers
on the prowl.
--Mary McAnally
Tulsa

24, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

MIRROR IMAGES

They will · not have the
mirror image
Whose shiny surface invites
inspection
Of each bump and blemish.
They embrace, instead, the
perfect match
Whose interchangeability is as
certain as earrings
Switched from ear to ear.
And so we, the perfect pair,
Cause wars
And rumors of wars
And earthquakes in divers places
And finally, the reddening of
the moon.
And the pairing of our bodies
Must be seen only,
As they say, through a glass,
darkly.
--Pamela Fitzgerald
Guthrie
PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 25

TO MY AUNT
(Dedicated to Norma Pralle)
I cried on my sister's shoulder;
The polished wood
was cold against my shaking back
and drone of comfort
was lost in the little girl's sobbing
in the front.
Her husband's hair
was grayer than I remembered,
his eyes puffy and red
behind glasses reflecting flowers
and a box in a blur.
My sister's words

fell on deaf ears
and racing thoughts
of accusations toward doctors
and family-and God,
if there was one.
The bell rang 61 times.
I shivered though my face was hot
as the face was revealed on the satin,
a look of peace fashioned there,
gray and thick with paint.
My tears were lost in the November rain,

unceasing since the death hour,
all falling to the mucky grass
beneath sinking high shoes.

26, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

I gave away my umbrella
at the graveside
when I stepped under the tent
with the other family mourners.
I stood weakly
on numbness and a chill
from the weather,
or the loss.
Again the comfort monotoned
his voice cracking now and then,
the closeness of a small church
lined his face and hollowed his eyes.
I saw tears escape my father's eyes
and I swallowed hard;
the pain in my throat
sucked for tears
long drained from my eyes.
When I walked, head down, from the canvas
a warmth, though slight,
fell across me
and the light caused my eyes to squint.
Still pain,
but the rain had gone.
--Cindy Sharp
Ponca City

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 27

THE END OF HER SORDID LOVE AFFAIR
Sweat oozed from the pores of the ghostly-colored tenement room.
A gagging stench of putrid garbage and stifling heat
Bludgeoned the tethered air.
Cockroaches swarmed over food-encrusted dishes.
Rats scurried in a frenzied ritual around the filthy room.
On a lopped-legged table maggots wiggled and wallowed
In a half-eaten hamburger.
Meretricious duds were strewn in a hugger:mugger way.
A tattered curtain clutched the open window frame.
Across the street, a bar's flashing neon sign richocheted
A distorted light on the disheveled, iron bed,
Exposing her sprawled, semi-nude body.
Once an exquisite ingenue who lusted for Jim Daniels and Lord Calvert,
Her passion for those previous, empty lovers opened
The wrong connections, causing a stream of faceless Johns
To flood her obscure past.
The High Priest of Snow now reigned as her mainliner, her supreme love,
Tattoos of his fixed visits marred her body.
An obsessive love for her deceptive gigolo now totally consumed her,
Being without him became unbearable---Convulsing her with a racking pain.
Supporting him became impossible with his insatiable demands.
Two nights ago she embraced her lothario for the last time.
Ah, that final kiss popped with purity.
She needed him no longer with her lungs bridled, her heart stilled,
And her thoughts silenced.
At last, her sordid love affair was over.
--Delores McDaniel
Harrah

28, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

EVE
wed

to scenes of fold and azure
in the empyrean sky
twilight splendor
and cosmic mists
on the horizon
stretching
to remember
a previous life
one is born
ancient wanderers
(universal observers)
time their chariot-race
while clouds roll below
they toss off
a secret
(to them it was never one)
a piece of dust
and air
come together
the unborn becomes real
--Porter Brundage
Oklahoma City

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 29

NIGHT HAPPENINGS
One lonely sob echoes from your darkened bedroom
I listen, when I hear nothing else, fall back to sleep.
Seconds later, I am awakened by small warm fingers touching my bare arm.
I force my eyes open, with the help of moon beams, see frumpled, curly
locks of hair and a tear-framed face.
"Bad dream?"
A nod is your response.
Sliding over, I throw back the sheet, pat the edge of the bed, and invite
you ~o crawl in beside me.
Your little bunnysuit is gone,
Only Darth Vader underwear and your birthday suit remain,
A reminder of the big boy you want so much to be.
Scooting close to me, you snuggle next to my night gown,
I feel your heart as it pounds in your small chest.
I wrap my arms around you, you place one of your hands in mme.
Words of comfort and a light kiss on your healthy cheek,
"It's all right. Mama's here."
Your heart-beat softens, no longer can I feel its hammering.
Secure, you drift off to sleep,
There is not a sound throughout the house, except your gentle breathing.
Your sleep is peaceful and soon mine will be too.
--Debbie Bouziden
Edmond

30, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

SAXO-PHONY
The deep voice of a saxophone
Resounds in my ears and vibrates
Softly, like t he waves at my feet;
It moves my heart, like this sunset,
Yellow, then orange, and red,
On the ocean of my dreams.
It was then. I was in love with him.
If you hear the strain of a saxophone
In the night, you may recall the past
Memory of this unique instant,
As I do now; you may make it come
True with the power of your imagination,
As I do now; you may also make it last
For ever: recreate a world around it,
Print it to defy eternity, and it will
Live beyond the words, colors, textures,
Or sounds.
If I could tune a song, you would
Hear the deep voice of a saxophone.
If I would limn a painting, you could
See the sunset, and the sea.
If I could carve marble or bronze, you would
Touch a man's body.
But I only write words, so you can
Dream with me the romance
Of a love story in warm summer
With sunset, sea, and saxophone
Indeed.
--Valerie Michelon
Norman

UOOWomen'11tMUdlaBOLTQ+eew. prncEWORK, Winter 1987, 3]

100 N. University Dr
Edmond, OK 73034

LABYRINTHIAN

1
Superstition Mountains.
That's where we grew up,
but I always feared the spiny mouth
of treasure tales in the chaparral
and swallowing depths of the myth of the
Lost Dutchman Mine.
As adults we moved away, apart.
Yet last year we tried to drive home, together,
until we stopped at Lena's Cafe and
I saw the cigarette burns on your arms.
Though you pulled your sleeves down fast
to cover your scars, I saw,
through the scalded coffee you drank,
the pain of self-inflicted isolation.
You were silent, but your eyes
glowed as they moved,
...igarette embers in a sleepless dark,
blind flashlights down the trackless labyrinth
of myth and fable.

32, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

2
Seeker of fable and treasure,
you were my sister once.
We sat together as children
on the pinnacle of Twin Mountain
and watched the sky tangle about the peaks;
But now you are lost to me,
you, desperate for the scent of the boundless,
you, who follows the spirals of an endless web
journeying, not accompanied by my perfume,
but by the stench
of burning, tobacco and your own flesh,
alone.
--Susan L. Smith
Norman

PIECEWORK. Winter 1987, 33

ELECTRIC DREAM

Your drink has the color of the sun
sitting on ice cube like an
orange red golden in my hand.
I swallow the cube, the ice, the sun,
and gold, then leave you there alone
with single drink and only red.
And the orange left in no hand
turns your nights into electric dream
where I drink the red golden sun.

ii
Your eyes have the color of the sky
in silver Spring when I defy
you through space in search for freedom.
I lose it in light gray blue sky
when you spy me through silver moon I
turn your nights into electric dream
Where you find gray space but no freedom
in no eyes because Spring bloomed blue my sky
when I found another--don't ask me why.

34, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

iii
Yet, my life has the color of your nights
and when I close your eyes we see sunlights
with red golden sun and silver moon.
I find it in ice cubed drink one night
and stop searching for other delight:
you turned my life into electric dream
That we together share beneath the moon
with no other, just you, me, and the night,
making love in gray blue space under golden light.
--Valerie Michelon
Norman

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 35

work

practical people
know the meaning of work
know the meaning of the word tired
when your hands bleed in some catmery
to put tomatoes and peaches in small cans
and bags of cut spinach in someone's freezer
it is part of the fob
to get great knots on your hands
at the nursery where the roses are clipped
to make them perfect for people with tract houses
this is expected, this way of complaint the body makes
you don't say anything though
you remember it is better to work
that canneries and greenhouses
are better than the chicken processing factory
Siloam Springs is a .fong drive
and the cold in the plant soaks through your bone
blood and viscera shine in the light
you work all night and when you get home
you don't sleep at first
maybe, it's daylight when you lie down
all the dreams ate red
you wake to soaked sheets
maybe, it's that time of the month
maybe, you've been stained
and you won't eat chicken, anymore
it's better to be in the fields
than in the factory
but, there's extra money for movies
and school clothes

36, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

it's steady income when winter comes
maybe, you'll be used to cold l-y then
when they ask what do you do
you say a little of this and that
you don't say you kill chickens
on an assembly line
--Brenda Catron-Grieves
Oklahoma City

archangels in the alley
Weaving stories at night
unraveling them at dawn
on the cold cobblestone of dreams ...
The city is alive tonight
and fused in flesh,
the designs of old women in sunday hose,
harlequins of children
taken captive in the arcade
the latin lover
hand on the trigger
fires myths into the young girls
laughing ...
we are all outlaws of minor fame
awaiting revelation
and archangels in the alley ...
--Kathryn Bell
Beggs
•PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 37

STILL LIFE WITH WINDOWS
I see
a rod
of blue, flaky light
in the dark
outside
my

second story
window.
I know what it is.
I look
at an angle
through
the window
at an on
television screen
at an angle
to me
in someone else's
apartment
in the dark.
--Beazley Kanost
Norman

38, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

TARAXACUM DENS-LEONIS
You dandys,
golden, disorderly
earth buggers.
Before the first lawnmower,
the chemicals,
the sweating gardner's palms,
you envelop us.
Beneath the blades
you lie low
precocious, summoning.
We approach you
with a testy attraction.
Your buttons
become cocoons
sun seekers, and rise,
teeth of lion,
thrusting stalks.

H. Bosch globes
of down
_ cushion on top of
rubbery limbs.
signaling children
to kick, blow
wishes, lineage.
Miracles can't be
this common.
--Jill Holmes
Stillwater

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 39

ANTELOPE HILLS, WESTERN OKLAHOMA
Out here these cliffs reach with a rock
overhang like a barn eave from which a hoist
lifts hay bales to the loft and we hear
the round sound of wind
against the ear cut into by the pulley squeak
and then only in haying or when bundles
drop to cows in snow.
It is cold here.
Fence posts climb onto the road and barns
point north.
Rosary beads of frozen rain hang from wires.
A white mother and Indian father dance
inharmonious tunes
as we plow furrows between our fingers.
The buzzard and blizzard.
Pan lids of wind over our ears
close out dogs barking at raccoon or opossum.
The sheets tap their toes in mud before we
get them off the line.
These cliffs
rise out of the flat land, the heritage I tightrope
while you hold me, Egg Man, the yoke of sun
still in its shell.
A gay wind, loose ferris wheel,
but the circus on the faded billet never came.
Always as a girl I wanted to see black bears
and painted Indians,
the fat lady who hung her stained laundry on the line-White lights on tent tops
tipping slightly like a milkpail across the land.
--Diane Glancy
Tulsa

40, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

TREE'S END
Leave the Mississippi and climb
the Ozark hills. Land ripples to
the west like a night's used sheet. A
road runs through shaded Arkansas,
flees across the Nations. Out there,
at the world's edge, the red earth waits
where the sky is never ending,
where the grass outruns the trees.
-.Judith Durbin
Midwest City

DANDELION
My root is deep

Not by desire
I'd love to pull it free
But being deep
And being strong
I cannot cease to be.
I'd love to be a different sort
With delicate perfume
And for just one fantastic night
I'd offer up my bloom.
For who recalls a homely weed
That brings them no delight
And who forgets a lovely bloom
That lasts a single night.
--Delphine Oberst
Norman

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 41

JONATHAN AND CLAIRE
Butterflies and tigers, how can
Tigers are so tough and strong,
This is the assumption made by
who haven't heard the story of

they compare?
butterflies like air.
people everywhere,
Jonathan and Claire.

Now Jonathan was a mighty beast, so strong and debonaire.
You wouldn't think this jungle cat would ever feel or care.
It's true he roamed the jungle floor, stalking far and wide,
but only Claire the butterfly could understand his cry.
She knew he cried 'cause he was bound to r-oam the jungle floor,
but in his heart his fondest wish was learning how to soar.
Now Claire knew all the ways to soar, it was her way of !if e.
She knew the power of the heights to soothe a heart of strife .
But how was she to show this beast that she could ease his pain,
for he saw !if e as thunderstorms, and she saw gentle rain.
One day, 'twas in the Summertime, while he lay in repose,
she made a brave decision, and she landed on his nose.
He opened his two green eyes, and did a double-take,
and gave her such a steady look her little heart did quake.
It was strength she saw in Jonathan, freedom he saw in Claire.
He was bound upon the land, and she was swept by air.
So on this day a bond was formed that they could not deny.
He would now stalk proudly as she would flutter by.
He would loan his strength to her, and she would, in return,
show him how to lift his soul as his sweet heart had yearned.
And if there be a God somewhere, and He should chance to spy
this handsome beast upon the ground and his little butterfly,
I'm sure that He would only smile and whisper out a prayer,
for His two loving children, Jonathan and Claire.
--Delphine Oberst
Norman

42, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

Sunsbin) sunshine,

on my face.
I am on a rock,
What a place!
Gleaming through the blue sky,
Just you, ladybug, you and I.

--Lauren Barnes, age 12
Edmond
(written at age 10)

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 43

BAD CAT
My bad cat is bad,

As bad as an old lad.
Nip, nip, nip, nip, nip, nip.
She would chew on my socks,
Break my locks.
I would try to hold her,
And of course she would jump out of my arms.
She would smell my friend's hand,
And bite it.
But those are just the good things about her.
I HAVE heard WORSE.
--Lauren Barnes, age 12
Edmond
(written at age 10)

44, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

Red Dirt Press, Inc., a women-owned and womenoperated publishing company, is seeking manuscripts by
women writers. Novels, volumes of poetry and books of
short stories will be accepted. Send your typed, doublespaced (except for poetry) manuscripts for consideration, along with a •SASE, to Manuscripts, Red Dirt
Press, Inc., P.O. Box 60693, Oklahoma City, OK 73146.

SUBMISSION DEADLINES: February 15 for spring issue; May
15 for summer issue; August 15 for fall issue; November 15 for
winter issue.

SUBMISSION POLICY: PIECEWORK accepts submissions of
poetry by women, particularly from Oklahoma and the south
central region. Payment is in one contributor's copy, with Red
Dirt Press, Inc., retaining first rights only. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but please inform us of this. Submissions should be typed and accompanied by a brief biographical
statement of the poet and a SASE. We will report within three
months.

WINTER 1987
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2



OIC"C 1 111 ftl,

t' I ,.;L~.: w,IK "'
A Magazine of Poetry by Women

ANN L. ZOLLER

Winter 1987

PIECEWORK is published four times a year. Subscriptions are $12 per year for individuals, $16 for libraries
and institutions. A free copy of PIECEWORK will be
furnished, on request, to the libraries of prisons and/ or
mental institutions. Single copy price if $4. Address all
correspondene to PIECEWORK, Red Dirt Press, Inc.,
P.O. Box 60693, Oklahoma City, OK 73146.

PIECEWORK
A MAGAZINE OF POETRY BY WOMEN
WINTER 1987
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2

Editors: Ann Carlton, Marian Hulsey, Abigail Keegan
Production: Elaine Barton, Eloise Dycus, Martha Hayes, Marian Hulsey
Distribution: Eloise Dycus, Nancy Viviani
Business Manager: Loral Reeves

Red Dirt Press, Inc., is the result of the vision of eight women who wanted to provide more publication opportunities for
women. The publication of this magazine of women's poetry,
aptly named PIECEWORK, which draws on all the images of
women's work that is done "by the piece," is dedicated to all
the women who write poetry, sometimes in spite of their lives
and families.

Published by Red Dirt Press, Inc.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
°Copyright 1987 by Red Dirt Press, Inc.
No part of this publication may be copied
or reproduced without written permission
UCO Women's Research & BGLTQt CcaMI'

100 N. University Dr
Edmond, OK 73034

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Poems by Featured Artist, Ann L. Zoller
"Dixieland Jazz on the Lawn" .................................................. 5
"After Love" ............................................................................. 6
"Particular Wind" ..................................................................... .7
"A Familiar Region" ..................................................................8
"My Story, From Inside This Place" ......... :.............................. 9
"Skins of the Cat" ................ .............. ................................... .10
"Transition" by Judith Durbin ...................................................... 12
"Untitled" by Kathryn Bell .......................................................... 12
"Winter Solstice" by Margie Snowden North ............................... 13
"Winter" by Jill Toler ................................................ ..................14
"Dia De Los Muertes" by Susan L. Smith ................................... 15
"Wild Geese" by Jill Toler .............. ., ........... ... ............................ ls
"Ghosts" by Sharon E. Martin ..................................................... 18
"Broken Dreams" by Helen Hinkle ......... .. .... ... ............................. 19
"The Sisters" by Renata Treitel.. ....................................... .. .... 20
"In a Brown Calfskin Box" by Susan A. VanSchuyver ................ 21
"Volumes" by Jat ......................................................................... 22
"The Luxury of Guilt" by Mary McAnally ................................... 23
"Notes on My Last Attempt to Communi~ate with My
Ex-Husband" by Mary McAnally ............................................. 24
"Mirror In1ages" by Pamela Fitzgerald ......................................... 25
-To My Aunt" by Cindy Sharp .................................................... 26
"'The End of Her Sordid Love Affair" by Delores McDaniel.. .... 28
"Eve" by Porter Brundage .............. ........... ................................. 29
"Night Happenings" by Debbie Bouziden ...................................... 30
"Saxo-phony" by Valerie Michelon ............................................... 31
"Labyrinthian" by Susan L. Smith ............................................... 32
"Electric Dream" by Valerie Michelon ........................................ 34

2, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

"work" by Brenda Catron-Grieves ................................. ..... ..... ..... 36
"archangels in the alley" by Kathryn Bell.. .................... .... ... ..... 37
"Still Life with Windows" by Beazley Kanost.. ........................... 38
"Taraxacum Dens-Leonis" by Jill Holmes .............................. ....... 39
"Antelope Hills, Western Oklahoma" by Diane Glancy .. ............. .. 40
"Tree's End" by Judith Durbin .................................................. .. 41
"Dandelion" by Delphine Oberst ................................................... 41
Poetry for Kids ...
"Jonathan and Claire" by Delphine Oberst .................................. 42
... and by Kids
"Untitled" by Lauren Barnes ......... .............................................. .43
"Bad Cat" by Lauren Barnes ....................................................... 44

Works in this issue that were published previously are
here republished with permission of the authors.

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 3

FEATURED ARTIST--ANN L. ZOLLER
The poet featured in this issue is Ann L. Zoller, who is
enrolled in the graduate program of the University of
Tulsa's School of Letters. She has served as assistant
poetry editor of NIMROD since 1984.
Ann has published two books, ANSWERS FROM THE
BOWING MOON and NEW PONY ON A CAROUSEL,
both of which won awards. She has been published in
numerous magazines and in several anthologies, including
AMERICAN POETRY ANTHOLOGY and TOUCHING FIRE
(Harper and Row).
When asked how she produces so much work, Ann says
that it is because she writes every day, and adds that
she does so because she is "addicted to the creative
fire."
She then explains that this creative fire is
another level of her consciousness--"all mind, reason
and passion entwined as one."
Because Ann is the kind of writer who "fires" the creative spark in other writers, we wish to thank her for
the interest in poetry she encourages, and recognize
the contribution she has made to this region.
Cover photo by Ann Carlton

4, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

DIXIELAND JAZZ ON THE LAWN
People on the lawn and the old men play jazz.
The tree like a gaunt man marks my place
in the thin night.
Sounds spill in front of the sunroom
as though the Chinese urn held music.
An old lover on the blanket with me.
It's a night we used to touch and now
touch again as different people.
That solemn note under the moon.
He is with a woman on this blanket
who is a friend of mine.
Here is the real world,
where lovers change and try on new people like pretty shoes
and the world goes on and nothing matters.
Notes from the oboe and the long horn
sound the same in the dark
whether we hear this song on this lawn
or some other place where old men make music.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 5

AFTER LOVE
First it was desire, the whorl into the vortex
of the skin.

I wonder if we ever had intimacy,

the string that chokes breath
and blinds with the lantern's strength.
You see it freed me to have loved you
and let you walk away in sun
without assigning blame, hurling recriminations.
I learned that spider webs fall away
blunt-ended in release, hardly
noticing the free fall to the ground.
An ache that adds a notch
to the heart, the ring
of more year.

It is such a relief

to know I am the substance and you,
a separate light.

--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

6, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

PARTICULAR WIND
We always talk into the wind,
words lost in the wind like
heavy birds fighting updrafts
coming off fog over the river.
I walk the •dusty path
by the confusion of water
and strain to catch words-go now
out of the black current of air
into morning, seine
berries off the wind.
Your eyes store history,
a touch of candles that were mine.
I need rest from the commotion of love.
It will never be the same.
Love moves like wind, the restless water.
Hollow words stop
and fall in this particular wind.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 7

A FAMILIAR REGION
Oystershells for the chickens,
chips of the sea tossed up here
in Oklahoma, the farm orderly as rows of corn. My hand
reaches under the warm breast
of the chicken for eggs.
I watch her eye, ready to run.
Sometimes I find eggs without a shell,
in a membrane, bouncy and tough.
I stare into the sack
and the egg sloshes like a water ball,
your face in the yolk.
I mourn your passing into womanhood.
That day when you know who you are
and you must leave,
oystershell in your pocket,
the wind on your back
and yellow in the air.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

8, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

MY STORY, FROM INSIDE THIS PLACE
The wind never broke that winter,
the winter of '47 when wheat surrendered
and crops failed. Your father
pacing ankle deep in curls of dirt.
I see you gliding on the old rope swing
back of the toolshed, that day
the grapevine choked the oak fence
and we found the cats limp.

It was the wind, the echo in my head,
the way it made everything hollow.
Here within bedlam's walls,
within these locks I have no fear,
the wall cocoons around me.
No wind, no sick child with croup.
I have air to breathe
and white noise like a lullaby
from another field.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 9

SKINS OF THE CAT
I did not ask for death
yet it came on slabs of night.
Once I climbed the boxelder,
nailing steps from shingles
as I escaped to treetops.
I am a cat, dying when I need to leave.
Layers of fur, hide, and flesh
chewed by you.
The yellow storn,
with its rush of clouds
and the black dew of winter.
Bacon burns on the stove
and I run crying, fire.
Your hands throw me
into flames.
Tears like cat-eyes.
Body into smoke, floating.
One skin sloughs
and I bounce into another.
I close tight as a grave.

10, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

Death comes whenever the moon splinters.
My feet leave smudges,
my voice gives no sound.
Black kites appear,
their tails are rags of dresses I need.
Clothes fly in the wind, in front,
to the side, out of reach.
Whiskers are needles in my dreams.
I need to fashion a house high in a tree
that knows me and wait,
wait for the sun to fill my eyes,
for the moon to find my body.
--Ann L. Zoller
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 11

TRANSITION

Snow
from leaden skies
spirals downward, dances
on noonday fields still stubbled
by summer's wheat, on faces of children
upturned
to winter
--Judith Durbin
Midwest City

UNTITLED

We danced at winter's masquerade
unaware of the trembling hours
at the windows sheathed in ice
We chased a thousand winds across the passion
of a countryside alive with van gogh vision,
Watching the legends in your eyes,
I named you in colors of turquoise and jet ...
--Kathryn Bell
Beggs

12, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

WINTER SOLSTICE
Miniature wildwood of
dwarfish shinnery,
winter-dead,
set in a sea of nut-brown acorns and
cast-off leaves
that scatter outward through wisps of
buffalo grass, color-drained wildflowers.
Under lead skies
quail scurry into that earthtone sanctuary,
the only stirring of life.
They blend motionlessly.
All earth is
quiescent, an unending monotone of
dull browns and greys,
awaiting in silence that re-awakening
which comes with spring.
--Margie Snowden North
Erick

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 13

WINTER

Winter falls
wrapping its wings over my eyes
filling my lids with white
a gauze
dimming my sight.

Through the night snow gently falls.
My body cradles deeper
between soft pillows
unearthing a comfort within these drifts
smothering the voice of my soul.
I awake,
yet I sleep
among shadows spreading across my path
where no fire has cast them.
Winter has fallen
silencing the river streaming below.
--Jill Toler
Deerfield, Massachussetts
(formerly, Muskogee, OK)

14, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

,
DIA DE LOS MUERTES
Winter limbs claw my window
as I awaken to madness,
the memory of a young woman,
who, kneeling to the hope of cleansing and rebirth
crawled toward the cathedral,
rising up from the heart of Mexico City.
Yet as her knees bled,
staining her march toward sacral walls
gargoyled with Gabriels and Michaels,
trumpeting shelter in a plundered New World,
the cathedral iridesced
a peacock glow of Quetzacoatl.
When she held her rosary and prayed to funereal marble,
an aftershock five hundred years deep
heaved like one stricken by the plague, like
Jesuits monumenting Montezuma's death.
How much pain can this body bear, how much blood
from tortured knees?
The earth keened .
She thought she smelled burning feathers
as the cathedral sank
inexorably downward into the ancient lake,
the primordial ocean that tolls dark waters
where all things inevitably return.
And falling to the pavement,
she heard the Aztec in the voices of the mestizo,
raging against the gargoyled angels
whose real aegis is
the whip
and the thorny crown .
--Susan L. Smith
Norman
PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 15

WILD GEESE
The geese fly low tonight.
Wild baying circles the valley
stretching thin echoes over the mountains.
We pause:
your eyP.s fingering still the pages
while I move to watch from a window
the flock forging a line
a shadow wings the moon.
Behind the fields stubbled
with dry stalks dimly lit,
wild geeses swoop to the pond below.
You lean into the fire's warmth.
I am alone when tuning my ear
to beasts skimming the pool
thrusting webbed feet forward.
Breaking the surface,
brown feathered tufts glide
sending circles of water
lapping over the shore.
Liquid bands linger back
sealing the flock within one silken skein.
Wild birds wrap themselves
in down feathered walls.

16, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

We know the glory of beasts,
drifting in sleep
silver vapors steam before the morning stirs,
when each spreads open the shelter
arched wings: feathers beating upon water
lifting splendor above the mist
exposed.
We know the horror of the wild!
Does it matter how we have chosen to deliver
ourselves from the explosion of the hunter's gun
that's sure to tear through the dawn?
Tonight, I struggle to sail beyond the fields
to rest if only in a moment
among the wings of the wild.
Can I blame you?
You who choose not to listen to the distance
fearing to lose what already we've lost.
I only touch what I imagine
and hope in the last breath of this day
our bodies folding one into the other
will rise then fall
and sleep under the wings of wild geese.
--Jill Toler
Deerfield, Massachussetts
(formerly, Muskogee, OK)

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 17

GHOSTS
Shuttered window dairy bar
On the edge of town
Once saw farmers' daughters driving by
In brand new Mustangs
And tight Levis
Stopping to chat with somebody's son.
Shuttered window dairy bar,
Tell of the dramas
Set on the stage beneath your once-bright awning,
And the wholesome drama
Inside.

You were a dream,

Somebody's dream of a good life in a good town.
Shuttered window dairy bar,
Your plyboard shutters groan
And your ghosts sigh.
--Sharon E. Martin
Cushing

18, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

BROKEN DREAMS

Unpainted and sunbleached
the old house stands.
Dust devils swirl in the air.
The yard is parched and cracked
no grass grows
no flowers bloom
Even the weeds are browned
and curled
The barn stands empty
and still
The field mice have gone.
The windmill is broken and still
but no matter
The well went dry long ago.
The sun unmercifully beats down
on someone's broken dreams!
--Helen Hinkle
Duncan

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 19

TWO SISTERS
Your laughter
summons the woman who never was a child
and I, who lived holding back words,
rise.
I had three grapes when I was a child.
"Choose the largest," I said to my sister.
I meant to keep the largest.
Her cruel laughter
pinned the last and smallest in my hand.
Then I stopped being a child.
When you laugh
I wind myself around you
finding comfort in the contact,
and in my contentment I bring you
the held-back words.
How do I know
you won't suddenly pull away,
spill my words like grapes,
let them roll, get crunched in the press?
Yet
I always wanted your laughter.
--Renata Treitel
Tulsa

20, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

IN A BROWN CALFSKIN BOX
I keep .time
in a brown calfskin box
on my dresser.
The memories of my life-my father's tie
given to me after his death,
my first poem,
a picture of my first love,
a crumbled name tag from
a conference in 1976,
my high school
graduation ring,
the expired passport
which went with me to Europe,
a rose from my wedding bouquet,
divorce papers, a small
wooden cat.
I keep time
in a brown calfskin box
on my dresser.
--Susan A. VanSchuyver
Oklahoma City

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 21

VOLUMES
Memories of days gone past
Fill the shelves of my mind
like books.
Each volume is full
Of chapters that
Outline my life.
Stories of places ...
People who have
Altered my destiny
Are mine to read and re-read.
You are in those volumes,
Story after story.
Your smile, touch,
Even your voice
Make up so many
Of my memories ...
Days gone past.
--Jat.
Grand Prairie, Texas

22, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

THE LUXURY OF GUILT

(for Carolyn Forche)
There was a woman who cried
forgive me deity for I have
sinned and am heartily
ashamed. I am unable to sleep
with a man and my thoughts
keep tapping on the curbstone
of def eat. My floors
are covered with newspapers and my scalp is crusted
with dirt. On this trip
my wheels betrayed a field mouse
and two turtles
stayed up-ended on the road
of no time no time to stop.
Forgive me for the woman
in my yard who calls
and moves away, the plant that
withers without water,
the food left wasted
on the table.
Forgive me because
we have become a country
where the only mortal
sin is despair
and the only cardinal
sin is silence.
--Mary McAnally
Tulsa

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 23

NOTES ON MY LAST ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH MY EX-HUSBAND
Never mind, my dear.
My thoughts now serve me better

than your touch, now
satisfy me more than you
(with your heavY entry,
your lying eyes).
You want me to convince
another woman she must love you,
regale her with my sighs
and heaving bosom,
tell her of past prowess,
future promise.
I see no more potential in your eyes,
my dear, and speak
no more of promise in your words.
Instead I search her face
for truth, for life, and
finding it, rest there with her,
our hearts forever lovers
on the prowl.
--Mary McAnally
Tulsa

24, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

MIRROR IMAGES

They will · not have the
mirror image
Whose shiny surface invites
inspection
Of each bump and blemish.
They embrace, instead, the
perfect match
Whose interchangeability is as
certain as earrings
Switched from ear to ear.
And so we, the perfect pair,
Cause wars
And rumors of wars
And earthquakes in divers places
And finally, the reddening of
the moon.
And the pairing of our bodies
Must be seen only,
As they say, through a glass,
darkly.
--Pamela Fitzgerald
Guthrie
PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 25

TO MY AUNT
(Dedicated to Norma Pralle)
I cried on my sister's shoulder;
The polished wood
was cold against my shaking back
and drone of comfort
was lost in the little girl's sobbing
in the front.
Her husband's hair
was grayer than I remembered,
his eyes puffy and red
behind glasses reflecting flowers
and a box in a blur.
My sister's words

fell on deaf ears
and racing thoughts
of accusations toward doctors
and family-and God,
if there was one.
The bell rang 61 times.
I shivered though my face was hot
as the face was revealed on the satin,
a look of peace fashioned there,
gray and thick with paint.
My tears were lost in the November rain,

unceasing since the death hour,
all falling to the mucky grass
beneath sinking high shoes.

26, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

I gave away my umbrella
at the graveside
when I stepped under the tent
with the other family mourners.
I stood weakly
on numbness and a chill
from the weather,
or the loss.
Again the comfort monotoned
his voice cracking now and then,
the closeness of a small church
lined his face and hollowed his eyes.
I saw tears escape my father's eyes
and I swallowed hard;
the pain in my throat
sucked for tears
long drained from my eyes.
When I walked, head down, from the canvas
a warmth, though slight,
fell across me
and the light caused my eyes to squint.
Still pain,
but the rain had gone.
--Cindy Sharp
Ponca City

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 27

THE END OF HER SORDID LOVE AFFAIR
Sweat oozed from the pores of the ghostly-colored tenement room.
A gagging stench of putrid garbage and stifling heat
Bludgeoned the tethered air.
Cockroaches swarmed over food-encrusted dishes.
Rats scurried in a frenzied ritual around the filthy room.
On a lopped-legged table maggots wiggled and wallowed
In a half-eaten hamburger.
Meretricious duds were strewn in a hugger:mugger way.
A tattered curtain clutched the open window frame.
Across the street, a bar's flashing neon sign richocheted
A distorted light on the disheveled, iron bed,
Exposing her sprawled, semi-nude body.
Once an exquisite ingenue who lusted for Jim Daniels and Lord Calvert,
Her passion for those previous, empty lovers opened
The wrong connections, causing a stream of faceless Johns
To flood her obscure past.
The High Priest of Snow now reigned as her mainliner, her supreme love,
Tattoos of his fixed visits marred her body.
An obsessive love for her deceptive gigolo now totally consumed her,
Being without him became unbearable---Convulsing her with a racking pain.
Supporting him became impossible with his insatiable demands.
Two nights ago she embraced her lothario for the last time.
Ah, that final kiss popped with purity.
She needed him no longer with her lungs bridled, her heart stilled,
And her thoughts silenced.
At last, her sordid love affair was over.
--Delores McDaniel
Harrah

28, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

EVE
wed

to scenes of fold and azure
in the empyrean sky
twilight splendor
and cosmic mists
on the horizon
stretching
to remember
a previous life
one is born
ancient wanderers
(universal observers)
time their chariot-race
while clouds roll below
they toss off
a secret
(to them it was never one)
a piece of dust
and air
come together
the unborn becomes real
--Porter Brundage
Oklahoma City

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 29

NIGHT HAPPENINGS
One lonely sob echoes from your darkened bedroom
I listen, when I hear nothing else, fall back to sleep.
Seconds later, I am awakened by small warm fingers touching my bare arm.
I force my eyes open, with the help of moon beams, see frumpled, curly
locks of hair and a tear-framed face.
"Bad dream?"
A nod is your response.
Sliding over, I throw back the sheet, pat the edge of the bed, and invite
you ~o crawl in beside me.
Your little bunnysuit is gone,
Only Darth Vader underwear and your birthday suit remain,
A reminder of the big boy you want so much to be.
Scooting close to me, you snuggle next to my night gown,
I feel your heart as it pounds in your small chest.
I wrap my arms around you, you place one of your hands in mme.
Words of comfort and a light kiss on your healthy cheek,
"It's all right. Mama's here."
Your heart-beat softens, no longer can I feel its hammering.
Secure, you drift off to sleep,
There is not a sound throughout the house, except your gentle breathing.
Your sleep is peaceful and soon mine will be too.
--Debbie Bouziden
Edmond

30, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

SAXO-PHONY
The deep voice of a saxophone
Resounds in my ears and vibrates
Softly, like t he waves at my feet;
It moves my heart, like this sunset,
Yellow, then orange, and red,
On the ocean of my dreams.
It was then. I was in love with him.
If you hear the strain of a saxophone
In the night, you may recall the past
Memory of this unique instant,
As I do now; you may make it come
True with the power of your imagination,
As I do now; you may also make it last
For ever: recreate a world around it,
Print it to defy eternity, and it will
Live beyond the words, colors, textures,
Or sounds.
If I could tune a song, you would
Hear the deep voice of a saxophone.
If I would limn a painting, you could
See the sunset, and the sea.
If I could carve marble or bronze, you would
Touch a man's body.
But I only write words, so you can
Dream with me the romance
Of a love story in warm summer
With sunset, sea, and saxophone
Indeed.
--Valerie Michelon
Norman

UOOWomen'11tMUdlaBOLTQ+eew. prncEWORK, Winter 1987, 3]

100 N. University Dr
Edmond, OK 73034

LABYRINTHIAN

1
Superstition Mountains.
That's where we grew up,
but I always feared the spiny mouth
of treasure tales in the chaparral
and swallowing depths of the myth of the
Lost Dutchman Mine.
As adults we moved away, apart.
Yet last year we tried to drive home, together,
until we stopped at Lena's Cafe and
I saw the cigarette burns on your arms.
Though you pulled your sleeves down fast
to cover your scars, I saw,
through the scalded coffee you drank,
the pain of self-inflicted isolation.
You were silent, but your eyes
glowed as they moved,
...igarette embers in a sleepless dark,
blind flashlights down the trackless labyrinth
of myth and fable.

32, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

2
Seeker of fable and treasure,
you were my sister once.
We sat together as children
on the pinnacle of Twin Mountain
and watched the sky tangle about the peaks;
But now you are lost to me,
you, desperate for the scent of the boundless,
you, who follows the spirals of an endless web
journeying, not accompanied by my perfume,
but by the stench
of burning, tobacco and your own flesh,
alone.
--Susan L. Smith
Norman

PIECEWORK. Winter 1987, 33

ELECTRIC DREAM

Your drink has the color of the sun
sitting on ice cube like an
orange red golden in my hand.
I swallow the cube, the ice, the sun,
and gold, then leave you there alone
with single drink and only red.
And the orange left in no hand
turns your nights into electric dream
where I drink the red golden sun.

ii
Your eyes have the color of the sky
in silver Spring when I defy
you through space in search for freedom.
I lose it in light gray blue sky
when you spy me through silver moon I
turn your nights into electric dream
Where you find gray space but no freedom
in no eyes because Spring bloomed blue my sky
when I found another--don't ask me why.

34, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

iii
Yet, my life has the color of your nights
and when I close your eyes we see sunlights
with red golden sun and silver moon.
I find it in ice cubed drink one night
and stop searching for other delight:
you turned my life into electric dream
That we together share beneath the moon
with no other, just you, me, and the night,
making love in gray blue space under golden light.
--Valerie Michelon
Norman

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 35

work

practical people
know the meaning of work
know the meaning of the word tired
when your hands bleed in some catmery
to put tomatoes and peaches in small cans
and bags of cut spinach in someone's freezer
it is part of the fob
to get great knots on your hands
at the nursery where the roses are clipped
to make them perfect for people with tract houses
this is expected, this way of complaint the body makes
you don't say anything though
you remember it is better to work
that canneries and greenhouses
are better than the chicken processing factory
Siloam Springs is a .fong drive
and the cold in the plant soaks through your bone
blood and viscera shine in the light
you work all night and when you get home
you don't sleep at first
maybe, it's daylight when you lie down
all the dreams ate red
you wake to soaked sheets
maybe, it's that time of the month
maybe, you've been stained
and you won't eat chicken, anymore
it's better to be in the fields
than in the factory
but, there's extra money for movies
and school clothes

36, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

it's steady income when winter comes
maybe, you'll be used to cold l-y then
when they ask what do you do
you say a little of this and that
you don't say you kill chickens
on an assembly line
--Brenda Catron-Grieves
Oklahoma City

archangels in the alley
Weaving stories at night
unraveling them at dawn
on the cold cobblestone of dreams ...
The city is alive tonight
and fused in flesh,
the designs of old women in sunday hose,
harlequins of children
taken captive in the arcade
the latin lover
hand on the trigger
fires myths into the young girls
laughing ...
we are all outlaws of minor fame
awaiting revelation
and archangels in the alley ...
--Kathryn Bell
Beggs
•PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 37

STILL LIFE WITH WINDOWS
I see
a rod
of blue, flaky light
in the dark
outside
my

second story
window.
I know what it is.
I look
at an angle
through
the window
at an on
television screen
at an angle
to me
in someone else's
apartment
in the dark.
--Beazley Kanost
Norman

38, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

TARAXACUM DENS-LEONIS
You dandys,
golden, disorderly
earth buggers.
Before the first lawnmower,
the chemicals,
the sweating gardner's palms,
you envelop us.
Beneath the blades
you lie low
precocious, summoning.
We approach you
with a testy attraction.
Your buttons
become cocoons
sun seekers, and rise,
teeth of lion,
thrusting stalks.

H. Bosch globes
of down
_ cushion on top of
rubbery limbs.
signaling children
to kick, blow
wishes, lineage.
Miracles can't be
this common.
--Jill Holmes
Stillwater

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 39

ANTELOPE HILLS, WESTERN OKLAHOMA
Out here these cliffs reach with a rock
overhang like a barn eave from which a hoist
lifts hay bales to the loft and we hear
the round sound of wind
against the ear cut into by the pulley squeak
and then only in haying or when bundles
drop to cows in snow.
It is cold here.
Fence posts climb onto the road and barns
point north.
Rosary beads of frozen rain hang from wires.
A white mother and Indian father dance
inharmonious tunes
as we plow furrows between our fingers.
The buzzard and blizzard.
Pan lids of wind over our ears
close out dogs barking at raccoon or opossum.
The sheets tap their toes in mud before we
get them off the line.
These cliffs
rise out of the flat land, the heritage I tightrope
while you hold me, Egg Man, the yoke of sun
still in its shell.
A gay wind, loose ferris wheel,
but the circus on the faded billet never came.
Always as a girl I wanted to see black bears
and painted Indians,
the fat lady who hung her stained laundry on the line-White lights on tent tops
tipping slightly like a milkpail across the land.
--Diane Glancy
Tulsa

40, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

TREE'S END
Leave the Mississippi and climb
the Ozark hills. Land ripples to
the west like a night's used sheet. A
road runs through shaded Arkansas,
flees across the Nations. Out there,
at the world's edge, the red earth waits
where the sky is never ending,
where the grass outruns the trees.
-.Judith Durbin
Midwest City

DANDELION
My root is deep

Not by desire
I'd love to pull it free
But being deep
And being strong
I cannot cease to be.
I'd love to be a different sort
With delicate perfume
And for just one fantastic night
I'd offer up my bloom.
For who recalls a homely weed
That brings them no delight
And who forgets a lovely bloom
That lasts a single night.
--Delphine Oberst
Norman

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 41

JONATHAN AND CLAIRE
Butterflies and tigers, how can
Tigers are so tough and strong,
This is the assumption made by
who haven't heard the story of

they compare?
butterflies like air.
people everywhere,
Jonathan and Claire.

Now Jonathan was a mighty beast, so strong and debonaire.
You wouldn't think this jungle cat would ever feel or care.
It's true he roamed the jungle floor, stalking far and wide,
but only Claire the butterfly could understand his cry.
She knew he cried 'cause he was bound to r-oam the jungle floor,
but in his heart his fondest wish was learning how to soar.
Now Claire knew all the ways to soar, it was her way of !if e.
She knew the power of the heights to soothe a heart of strife .
But how was she to show this beast that she could ease his pain,
for he saw !if e as thunderstorms, and she saw gentle rain.
One day, 'twas in the Summertime, while he lay in repose,
she made a brave decision, and she landed on his nose.
He opened his two green eyes, and did a double-take,
and gave her such a steady look her little heart did quake.
It was strength she saw in Jonathan, freedom he saw in Claire.
He was bound upon the land, and she was swept by air.
So on this day a bond was formed that they could not deny.
He would now stalk proudly as she would flutter by.
He would loan his strength to her, and she would, in return,
show him how to lift his soul as his sweet heart had yearned.
And if there be a God somewhere, and He should chance to spy
this handsome beast upon the ground and his little butterfly,
I'm sure that He would only smile and whisper out a prayer,
for His two loving children, Jonathan and Claire.
--Delphine Oberst
Norman

42, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

Sunsbin) sunshine,

on my face.
I am on a rock,
What a place!
Gleaming through the blue sky,
Just you, ladybug, you and I.

--Lauren Barnes, age 12
Edmond
(written at age 10)

PIECEWORK, Winter 1987, 43

BAD CAT
My bad cat is bad,

As bad as an old lad.
Nip, nip, nip, nip, nip, nip.
She would chew on my socks,
Break my locks.
I would try to hold her,
And of course she would jump out of my arms.
She would smell my friend's hand,
And bite it.
But those are just the good things about her.
I HAVE heard WORSE.
--Lauren Barnes, age 12
Edmond
(written at age 10)

44, Winter 1987, PIECEWORK

Red Dirt Press, Inc., a women-owned and womenoperated publishing company, is seeking manuscripts by
women writers. Novels, volumes of poetry and books of
short stories will be accepted. Send your typed, doublespaced (except for poetry) manuscripts for consideration, along with a •SASE, to Manuscripts, Red Dirt
Press, Inc., P.O. Box 60693, Oklahoma City, OK 73146.

SUBMISSION DEADLINES: February 15 for spring issue; May
15 for summer issue; August 15 for fall issue; November 15 for
winter issue.

SUBMISSION POLICY: PIECEWORK accepts submissions of
poetry by women, particularly from Oklahoma and the south
central region. Payment is in one contributor's copy, with Red
Dirt Press, Inc., retaining first rights only. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but please inform us of this. Submissions should be typed and accompanied by a brief biographical
statement of the poet and a SASE. We will report within three
months.

WINTER 1987
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2