by Verandah Porch
Watch her steps
on any ancient frieze:
He’s a terrorist; she’s his
mission: the country he’ll kill
for. He say’s he’ll blow apart
her home if she doesn’t come
now shielding him and
she does beautifully—
The girl as cigarette
igniting when he draws
on her. Feline: nine lives
spoken for.
He is her fiancé.
His stolen gold in her bedroom
she alone can handle.
She likes his foreign taunt:
“I claim responsibility.”
Don’t ask. She won’t snap
out of it or straddle
his shadow.
He wants to take her
underground.
Based in rural Vermont since 1968, Verandah Porche has published The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books) and has pursued an alternative literary career. She has written poems and songs to accompany her community through a generation of moments and milestones. As a teacher and facilitator, she has created collaborative writing projects in schools and nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Artbeat,” on public radio stations around New England and in the Vermont State House. The Vermont Arts Council awarded her a Citation of Merit, honoring her contribution to the state’s cultural life in 1998, and a recent grant to support the preparation of poetry for publication and performance.
