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So Much in Five Worlds and Five Suns
by P.J. Nights
I. Earth
“Watch out for ocelots,” her big sister
warned. “They eat bad girls.”
Angela shivered and watched
the lizards leave their shadows
for lazy wallows in puddles of sun.
In postured bravado they stuck out
flicking tongues at the tiny tigrello,
and the little girl just knew
the cat had bigger dinner plans.
a circle
‘round the sun is broken
II. Fire
As a baby, Angela would gurgle
to pinkie toes, little aliens
to chase when learning to walk,
guardian angels of dark crib nights.
As she grew, her chubby feet
ran after her sister in a game
of “monkey see, monkey do” and
she no longer heard the wisdom of toes.
a circle
‘round the sun is broken
III. Air
Her sister knew so much! Useful things
like how to use a Lite-Brite,
how to make friends with cucumber cool,
how to hoodwink parents into thinking
she could do no wrong. Waving her arms
Angela yelled, “Have you seen MY polka?”,
but she could never still an impious tongue,
never be the sacrificial lamb, and her world
shrunk to a room of candle flames and lava lamps.
a circle
‘round the sun is broken
IV. Water
She pounded out piano recitals for one,
rants in E minor denying her wish
for prom dresses in iridescent feathers,
for birthday gifts of turquoise and gold.
Angela dressed instead in humble rushes,
thumbed her freckled nose at the world,
a goddess of garbage drowning
in her own unnoticed tears.
a circle
‘round the sun is broken
V. Rock
Angela lay breathing quietly
as the fifth world was born into darkness.
She took up her pen and whispered poetry
through gloom, teased tinder to a bonfire
into which she fed her dress of reeds.
In the fifth world, Nanautzin's immolation
lit the sky. Now she traces with her finger
a circle
‘round the sun unbroken
©2002 by P.J. Nights
P.J. Nights lives in coastal Maine with her family and various pound
pets. She teaches physics and astronomy. Her poetry and stories have
been or will be published on the Web at Erotica Readers Association,
Slow Trains, Clean Sheets, Erosha, Adult Story Corner, Mind Caviar,
Amoret, the Emerald Collection, Ophelia's Muse, Hoot Island, the
Writer's Hood and MiPoesias. She has or will also be in print in
Penumbra, Femme and the Slow Trains Volume 1 Anthology. She won an
honorable mention for the poem "Trench Coats & French Toast" in the
November 2001 Interboard Poetry Competition, and was chosen as the
Poet Laureate for the spring edition of Amoret's Emerald Collection. See more of her work at her
Web site.
Art print by Franz Marc, Fighting Forms.
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Slow Trains, Volume 1 in print