Two Poems by Christine Butterworth-McDermott
/SALE PENDING
Christina Butterworth-McDermott
I have thought of you that way since the moment
when framed in the dark doorway, you came
toward me, after I had put the key in the lock
and stepped into the empty house. What was it
that pushed me forward to brush your shoulder
as I led you through drafty room after room,
the gold ring on your finger signifying nothing
but a pretty token of what you were telling me
was broken and must be fixed. We stood in a room
without a bed and I was almost undone by the thrum
of your body, the hum of its electrical charge.
To kiss you would be to lick a socket, rocket
hard to disaster. I search for a bomb shelter,
some way out of here, some safe room—
but you stand grinning, hands out, asking
about the flowered wallpaper, the soft
carpet you would lay down upon the floor.
LIME
Christine Butterworth-McDermott
In a dream you come to me in a hazmat suit
carrying a lime, sucked out, the rind a rich
sad green stuck inside a sealed plastic bag,
which you hold out, tell me it’s a gift.
Okay, I suppose—if one expects used fruit.
Awake, I discover that limes
“signify disaster, multiple failures” but maybe
“new birth after strife,” and I learn, too,
that sometimes limes can cause
phytophotodermatitis (that’s in real life),
a burning that can scald a bartender’s hands.
I’m in love with a bartender whose hands
magically soothe the customers with each
and every drink. I worry about all the touches
he gives away and all the touches he gets back.
It’s a dangerous profession he’s in. This world
doesn’t treat magic well. You tell me not to worry
You tell me everything will be okay, just don’t unseal
the bag. That’s what you say in the dream
when you hand me the lime. You smile
from the hazmat suit. I take the plastic, I take
the fruit, and nod. And then, I say thank you.
Author’s Note: Both of these poems are from a new collection which explores the ideas of poisonous plants and people and the intersections between them.
Christine Butterworth-McDermott is the author of a chapbook Tales on Tales: Sestinas (2010) and the collection, Woods & Water, Wolves & Women (2012). Her second full-length collection about the chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit and the murder of Stanford White, Evelyn As, has just been published by Fomite Press, and a chapbook, All Breathing Heartbreak (Dancing Girl Press) is forthcoming. She teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Stephen F. Austin State University and is the founder and co-editor of Gingerbread House Literary Magazine.
