Improv 2, Week 9

The second riff for this week comes from Angie Estes' "Gloss":

My mother said that Uncle Fred had a purple
heart, the right side of his body
blown off in Italy in World War II,
and I saw reddish blue figs
dropping from the hole
in his chest, the violet litter
of the jacaranda, heard the sentence
buckle, unbuckle like a belt
before opening the way
a feed sack opens all
at once when the sring is pulled
in just the right place:
the water in the corn pot
boils, someone is slapped and summer
rain splatters as you go out
to slop the hogs. We drove home
over the Potomac while the lights
spread their tails across the water, comets
leaving comments on a blackboard
sky like the powdered sugar
medieval physicians blew
into patients' eyes to cure
their bindness. At dusk,
fish rise, their new mons
etching the water like Venn diagrams
for Robert's Rule of Order
surfaced at last, and I would like to
make a motion, move
to amend: point of information, point
of order. I move to amend
the amendment and want
to call the question, table
the discussion, bed
some roses, and roof the exclamation
of the Great Blue heron sliding
overhead, its feet following flight
the way a period haunts
a sentence: she said that
on the mountain where they grew
up, there were two kinds
of cheeries-red heart
and black heart-both of them
sweet.

I love how the imagery moves the reader to a variety of different settings in a way that is paced steadily throughout the poem. It almost seems as if the images are embedded within each other, like one Russian doll within another. Yet they all tell a story. I attempted to achieve the same type of movement within my poem.

Powder

My father said that Aunt Florance had an orange
gash, the left side of her neck
pussed from a plague before my time,
and I saw greenish-white juice
dripping from the slits
in her neck, the maroon trail
of her vein, heard the period
roar, mew, like a feline
after a fight the way
the eye closes all at once when the lemon
is squeezed in just the right place:
the corn-husks in the rice pot
boils, someone is skidded, and winter
rays paralyze as you go in to
wood the heath. We trotted home
over the Mississippi while the
moon’s eels slitered across the wind,
asteroids leaving asterisks on the drew
covered cround like the sweetened stone
philosophers used illegally
on believers to blind their
sight. At sunset, birds land, their
old stars retching dust like the cutters
on the show “Bones,”
blending into the sky, and I
would like to make a movement, a precedent,
pressing the dent of my mind. I move
the moving and desire to answer the action, pillow
the debate, bury some lemons, and floor the interjection
of the Old Gray bat hanging
beneath my feet, it’s ears seeing sounds
the way the blind hears brail: he said that
in the Appalachains, the well known range,
there were two kinds of trees: the white tree
and the red tree-both of them strong.