Poems by Ruth Bavetta

Nightfall

In the fading light, a crane
lifts a piano toward the seventh floor,

as children pause to watch. Strains
of music from the next-door window fill

the space as the crane plays out its cables,
struggles to place the piano

before the coming night. The children
return to their play. The moon, pale

as winter turned to stone, 
remains alone and far away.

 

Music Lesson  

My hair, that won’t hold a curl when curls
are what all the girls want, falls in my face.

I didn’t even know
 
there were Hawaiian guitars
before my mother gave me this one.

I didn’t ask for it.

Nobody I know plays one.
Where is that buzz coming from?

The guitar whines into the amplifier when I push
the heavy brass slide toward its throat.

I can’t

find the frets, angle the slide,
hold down the right strings,

keep the guitar from slithering off my lap.  

I can hear my mother humming
in the other room, aloha oe…

If I touch the amp and the guitar
at the same time, I get an electric shock.

I have not
told my mother.

 

 

In Slant Light

In the shadow of the mountain
birds come from nowhere,

steal strands of my hair. Lizards
dart across my eyelids

as I sleep. The weight of the sun
is canted to the edge

of my days. The past persists
like a phantom limb.

Everything goes on
for as long as it takes