Poem by Holaday Mason

On the Table While Dinner Grew Cold
                                                — for J. R.


It's never dark inside you, the man over her said.
Like patience, she thought, 
 
as in, a woman’s open natural salutation, 
the man breathing, strong as stratum— 

residue on her belly, something retrieved 
or reinvented,
mineral, but motile. 
 
And what of her lies under him 
 
(The man) invisible? 
Shudder the candle—as, she too flickers. 
 
The cat stands at the glass door—all eyes. 
 So, it all seems very possible, & they ignore things.  
No one of right mind cares.
 
The undulations of forgetting & brand new— 
she forgot what she was 
trying to remember. Start from the beginning. There was
 
the worry about the neighbor who kept calling 
the police for no good reason except to interrupt 
what could not be controlled.
 
Then the new couch her friend was calm about 
only when sitting on it brushing the little faux suede fur 
 
all in one direction. 
 
And yes, the friend had heard a scream or two— 
yes, but not bad ones & music— 
Jimmy Smith or Chet
 
curved around her spine, the floating locations of her 
undone limbs—the man— his body like an entire farm 
one can never quite see from the highway,
except as an outline of strange symmetry,
 
a world you could once have 
determined with a plow.

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Holaday Mason is the author of The Red Bowl: A Fable in Poems, (Red Hen Press) 2016, The “She” Series: A Venice Correspondence (collaboration with Sarah Maclay, What Books Press, 016), Towards the Forest, 2007, Dissolve, 2011 (New River Press, University of Minnesota) & two chapbooks. “ The Weaver’s Body”, was finalist with honorable mention for 014 Dorset Prize & her chapbook “ Transparency” was finalist for the Snowbound 2015.   Pushcart nominee, widely published in national journals including Poetry International, Spillway, Pool, American Poetry among others & she was co- editor of Echo 68, poetry editor of Mentalshoes.com. Holaday is also a fine art & portrait photographer focusing on intimate portraits showing the beauty of aging.  She is a psychotherapist in private practice since 1996. www.holadaymason.com

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