The Cage

 

by Brett Rutherford

Trapped in the lion’s cage,
stalked by the famished cat
that circles him, eyes locked
onto his own terrified orbs,

there is no place to hide,
except the steamer trunk
from which the roaring beast
might perch and leap,

and a large wardrobe
whose doors, ajar,
might close around him
if he hid within —

then what? Outwait
the mounting appetite
of the clawed predator?
It would only get hungrier.

He chances it, leaps in,
pulls shut the double doors,
and, thank god, there is a hook
to keep it from opening.

Lion in cage, man in wardrobe.
Tooth and claw threatened him
 — but what had he?
He fumbles in the dark. What if
this wardrobe had a cache of guns,

or the lion-tamer’s whip,
one snap of which would send
the tamed beast cowering
into a safe corner?
Has he been riddled thus
to solve it? Will those
outside the cage applaud
his feat and release him?

Alas, no whip, no cold,
long cylinder of rifle.
Up and above his back
there is something soft.
A cold snout touches
the nape of his neck,
as the unmistakable reek
of rotten meat announces

the Lion within.

 

Miss Schreckengost and the Mango

by Brett Rutherford

 Apples and oranges
     easy to draw
     no right-way or wrong
     to color the apples
she tells us

     apples are red, oh, yes,
     but they are yellow, too —
And sometimes green, I offer,
And sometimes green, she nods. 

What else? she asks.
                                  Brown,
someone says darkly. Brown
when they are rotten.

 Miss Schreckengost goes on
with blackboard examples:
The orange is round,
the apple more like
    a little heart,
     its dimpled top
     with the stem still on.

 Dutifully we draw
     one apple,
     one orange,
then, crayons out
we fill the outlines
with suitable colors,
(except for Ritchie,
whose angry scrawl
segments his orange,
slices his apple).

 I trace
    and then erase
a wriggling worm,
the kind that make
apples inedible.

 What does an apple
taste like? Miss Schreckengost
queries us? Sweet, all say.
My hand goes up,
Sour, I say. I like
green apples best.

 What does an orange
taste like? the teacher asks.
Sour! — No, sweet!
the children argue.
Red-headed Garnet
says nothing, for she
has never had an orange.

We finally agree
that something can be
sour and sweet together.

 The lesson done,
Miss Schreckengost tells us
to put away the crayons,
sign each our name
below our drawings
with a Number Two pencil.

 As we do this, she slips
into a reverie and says
There is a fruit
you cannot draw.
It is called a mango.
There is no name
for the shape it has,
no single color
in its mottled skin.
There are no words
that can say what taste
belongs to the mango.

 I was in Mexico,
where I met someone.
His name was Alejandro,
and he played guitar
with his delicate
     long fingers.
He fed me my first
     mango
          with a spoon.
There are just no words.

Her eyes looked off
beyond and above
the coal miners’ children
in the hilltop
     school-house.

 Oh! the Mango!

 (Kingview Elementary School, Scottdale PA)

Not the Lady You Thought She Was

 by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Marina Tsvetaeva

Not the lady you thought she was
as she comes out of the narrow aisle
of the nearly-perfect cathedral,
to where the crowds scream for her
in the shadow of the onion-domes —

Freedom! Look at those diamonds
she took from princes and aristocrats.
All will be well, she tells them.
But the chorus was only practicing:
the Liturgy of Requiem is still to come.

Not the lady you thought she was,
she laughs, taps toes to the merry tune
of the Marseillaise, and sings along.
Then, crossing the barricades, the whore
leans her head upon the soldier’s medaled chest.