MaryAnn Franta Moenck: Three Poems

That Crow | Fedora | Dream, Long After Love

That Crow

Stupid, that crow, splashed at the puddle
by every car that roars by. The boisterous
sloppiness of Spring
drips from his tousled feathers.

He shrugs his oily wings, hops
and dips again.

He’s free,
that crow, to let the mistake
be a game, and the game his living.
Something in the puddle
is good; he wants.

Fedora

I love that word! Call me Fedora
from now on. And if you write
make it Dear Fedora. It has the sound
of the feminine adored, or half-Latinate
fed mouth. Indeed, I’ve been given
much in this life. Fedora! I can afford
a fedora.

On the far edge of thought
was a pedestal, and on the pedestal
The Poet. Bareheaded and saying nothing
he tossed me this hat. My new hat.
I love it already, though it has not yet arrived.
I caught it midair from the Poet who is
everyone whose work I have ever loved.

For a moment I recognized my Grandfather’s
leather Tyrol. That was his fancy.
After he died we found scraps of poems
all over the house, tiny neat notes,
bright images, rich phrases,
none of them put together, none of them
going anywhere anymore. It was his hat
I snatched—but no.

My own.
My scraps of words, just a dull wool hat.
But a gift was added. It came flung
my way with my writer’s hat,
this spotted feather—
A feather in my hat!

Fedora. Fed mouth, fed on gold. Aura.
When I ordered the hat from this dream
I asked the man, do you have such a feather?
Spotted, black and white. He said sorry no.
Next day he wrote: Gray fedora
on the way, with a red feather! Ah!—
so passion is readily available
anywhere I ask. I’ll have to find
the black and white on my own,
though the gift is already given.
There’s a feather in my hat. Call me
Fedora!

Dream, Long After Love

A ragged package arrived.
Blue scrawl, my name in his hand;
brown paper, torn.

Inside, a clay pot,
black soil
with a rumor of rain;

The tiny green finger
of cactus, furred
in its own safety.

Nothing will touch it
without knowing
it means to live.

Poet's Biography:

MaryAnn Franta Moenck is a practicing dental hygienist, grandmother of twin boys and a poet deep at heart. She has recently made a creative change of venue from glass art back to poetry. A daily practice of writing has served as her life’s anchor. Previous publications include poems in Sundog, the Florida Review, and three poems in the anthology The Boundaries of Twilight (New Rivers Press, 1991)—all published under MaryAnn Franta.