Two Poems

Alison Moncrieff

Y

rustine, the undersqueak of your carriage
i seen your bed rustin’ in the yard
milkweed growing all up in its frame
parts of you rise up between hunks of the old hiway
rain tools the weedpath in wishbones, sugar
split your selves crazy, that’s what you did
same way a road cherrystems into wilderness

clotho

there can be no revival of the form

who foraged fiber
twisted it up like a weed
from the ocean floor
feasted with the others
on the life it fastened

who could have the idea
being idea
to interfere while twirling
mermaid silk with distaff tending
a mythical string into life

whose seagrass field is fading
a plastic cup hovers
over the ocean floor
it is your sister’s job to weave

© Alison Moncrieff

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Alison Moncrieff thinks language is spiritual grist, the self is a myth, and wool can be heard on the radio. Born in the late Santa Clara Valley of California, she now writes, stitches, and tends chickens & children in Oakland, her home for 30 years. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Bay Area Generations, Entropy, and The East Bay Review. Her chapbook Cherrystem will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. She is currently developing a wardrobe of sacred-garment poems.