Yarrow House

The Tiptoe Queen

The tiptoe queen slipped on meanings
although she caught 
a turn of head, a quiver
in the voice,
clear as red poppies shaking in the wind,
a sentence half said before they
spied her: secrets, secrets.

Why didn’t her father hold her
as he held her sister, her mother?
Where were the stars,
and what hurt,
what hurt inside?

Did their whispered words fall 
into hands held before their mouths?
Did they spit them out like seeds?

If you ate them, would they sprout?
Could she kill the little words
by too much saying, over and over
and over, dry out their meanings?
Or would they pop in her mouth
as bright as grapes
at the next taste of the tongue?

Another voice not hers
grew flowers in her throat;
she took them to bed. And dreams
were houses you lived in at night 
where they threw you down the stairs.

Published in The Immigrant, Court Street Press, (1984).

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Onetime reproduction for non-resale purposes permitted by the author with the following credit line: by J Yarrow