ave maria
TRANSCRIPT
Ave MariaAuthor(s): Michael MorseSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Spring - Summer, 1993), pp. 105-106Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20153417 .
Accessed: 12/06/2014 20:00
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Iowa Review.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 185.2.32.89 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 20:00:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Ave Maria
Ave, Ave, the trick
is to stay crisp in this milk, to float through this winter
steady as the rain we've seen,
to wait for the days to lengthen so we may see our first bat,
because we have no caves
in which to hide our furred bodies when the wind slaps cold
like a new-skin whip,
Ave, Ave, we were boys once,
we thrived on a game
where we would die and lie still,
hold the breath in our lungs and rise
up in minutes to take someone new,
it was no miracle when we rose,
rose from the leaf piles? true soldier, the canteen is a thought that never lies still, booted or bootless
in the mud and milky ice, Ave we were girls once,
we put versions of ourselves
in rooms we modeled ourselves,
although the floors were fake
and the walls lacked good paper,
although the southern exposure was only a bulb of low wattage, and when the necks of our doll-selves
did not turn
we would twist until they would.
105
This content downloaded from 185.2.32.89 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 20:00:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Ave?drink your juice, mend the cuff, love
the way your hands on your kickback hips are meant as imperative joists, how you liken your fears
to small paper boats on a sound?
small boats on a sound,
harken the herald, he's in your face:
Ave, rise and shine Ave,
enough of your narcoleptic fettering, all around us lie the addendum of agendas, it is truly an age of consent
(might we hustle and invest ourselves?) we've already signed for the package;
you are outstanding in your involuted ways.
Soldier, doll, look at how the dalmatians on every block
cower and hunch forth in a rabid wag-dance,
Ave, Ave, you can sing the songs we used to hum,
get up.
106
This content downloaded from 185.2.32.89 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 20:00:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions