Leveler Poetry Journal
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Fantasy while serving strawberry-rhubarb pie to my husband and a friend

 

I close my fists white knuckling a meal

with two human raptors, fiercely competing

for each other, this predating pair

 

He, a black eagle aiming his stare,

at her, a falcon,

with long inky hair.

 

I prepare a berry pie, not heeding wise harks,

that serving tarts to the insatiable

is like feeding birdseed to sharks.

 

When suddenly,

 

The raptors rise on their haunches,

scan the tree line for height,

jump onto a railing, preparing for flight!

 

The avians scream as they soar,

frightening song birds to flee

their deafening roar.

 

Up to my chambers I run, to

find my crossbow, a handsome antique,

as is the Swedish Mauser I lift to my cheek.

 

Flinging open the shutters I aim at the sky,

fire a warning shot

to ensure the creatures comply.

 

The charged concussion scatters the birds,

a report from my firearm

speaks louder than words!

 

My dark predators, fallen and bloodied,

creep back to the garden,

subdued but studied.

 

By me, as we’ll soon see why:

they’re air borne again!

they’re back in the sky!

 

The eagle scopes a lovely white bird. Sharp eyes

portend his dovely new prize, while

the raven smells fresh flesh and her talons extend.

 

From my quiver I draw two arrows

and muse to myself…

 

“I recant my offer to dine this edacious pair, but

I must keep in line escapees from deathly dark vaults,

and take action to end their vicious assaults!”

 

I ponder them in my sights while draining my quaff,

then release two sharpened darts

to finish them off.




Rebecca Nelson

levelheaded: Fantasy while serving strawberry-rhubarb pie to my husband and a friend

 

From this poem’s first word, we know we’ll be party to the speaker’s “Fantasy.” This lowers the stakes of the poem enough that its violence comes off as whimsy. It lets us receive the poem in good humor. And it helps us identify a speaker who understands her own anger, who slathers her inner life with self-conscious comedy.

 

It’s quickly clear that the “two human raptors” are the speaker’s “husband and a friend.” The poem enters its conceit – that two ferocious, metaphorical birds are in some kind of absurd courtship dance – immediately after identifying them in the title. What’s less clear is how seriously the two birds are “competing / for each other.” The speaker’s kneejerk decision to shoot them out of the sky implies something serious behind the “black eagle aiming his stare, / at her, a falcon.” The speaker abruptly (and perhaps enviously) describes her “long inky hair,” appropriating her husband’s gaze, imagining what he sees in her friend.

 

Whatever the past and future of this “predating pair,” the speaker’s fantasy reveals her distinct point of view. For instance, she retains her humanity while her companions turn into animals. She sees them as “dark predators,” as “fiercely competing.” This is the language of Darwinism. They aren’t humans, but they are creatures engaged in a survival-of-the-fittest, might-is-right sort of battle. And the way she proves that she is right, that she will survive whatever betrayal wanders her way, is by acting out her own violence against those she imagines have wronged her.

 

Her self-mythologizing continues when the mysterious “lovely white bird” becomes the target of the raptors’ wrath. It’s a strange turn of events. Unlike the other two birds, the dove does not have a clear counterpart in the real world. The speaker is firing guns and arrows all over the place, so the dove must represent an unidentified innocent bystander – maybe a child – who stands to lose on the failure of the speaker’s marriage. Whoever it is, the speaker is quick to stand up (comically) for virtue and rightness. It’s the speaker who will kill to protect the innocent.

 

The poem’s melodrama embraces the silliness of its extended metaphor. The poem’s willingness to stay weird is one of the things we like most about it. The speaker’s final speech is a performance. It makes no attempt to simulate real speech. It is a purposeful parody of Poetry (with a capital “p”). And the ending is great. As the speaker drains “her quaff” we’re momentarily teleported back to the meal with the pie and the flirty husband, and we can picture the speaker actually finishing off a glass of whatever she’s got in front of her. And we can imagine that the “two sharpened darts” that finish them off are really a couple of knife-sharp gibes that make everyone in the room stop squawking for a second.

 

-The Editors