Janet Buck, USA Bio: Janet Buck taught writing and literature at the college level for sixteen years and decided to stop lecturing about it and do it. She is widely published in journals and anthologies world wide. Her recent collection of poetry, Before the Rose, is an Audio/ Music CD available from Art Villa Records. Her e-book Ash Tattoos, a collection of poetry on Sept 11th and the aftermath, is due out 2002 from ZeBook Company. It is also available at: http://www.blquanbeck.com/zebokcompany/zebookAsh.html

Black Christmas Be brave, you say, I'm done. Arms and slats of silent chimes. I scurry to hang ornaments, dust the mantle, pitch the molded fruit in bags. This year's christmas is black.  I'm a wood pecker tapping stone while you await a casket's cradle, patiently as drying flowers. Be brave, you say, I'm done. I tear letters up, water the ivy, corner the bed. You sit on this lip of that grave, leaning into the end. She's slipping, slides my sister's voice, like priests in smooth wool robes. Blood is soot. No whistle left in your pulse. Fuzzy Watch Neck just poised beneath the axe, never enough deep blue in sapphire carets of sky. Rash of clouds awaits our skin; storm brews its pot of livid tea. When you call, we hurry through happiness, speak only of cloying grief. "They found a tumor growing there among the garden's flashy leaves." A poison mushroom in life's casserole, its edges frequented by scorch. I roll the news like rosaries in sweaty palms as if the tribune were my own. When you call, we pick the dirt from cameos pinned against our sagging breasts. Put the arrow to the string, pass these heaving boulders on. Agate fist mooning for a wall to split, agape will deliver us. I see us there on river banks staring at passing fish, their fins like moir`e  vases scored by beauty we won't see again. We strain our backs, embalm our tears, drain our styes, hang our ghosts. Spagetti pots, once full, are not. Upholstery of flesh at fade, a fuzzy watch too near the steam. All works copyright Janet L Buck

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