6 Poems
by Julie Doxsee

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SYNONYM

a body remembers
fresh taste

the cold
could cry open,

his smile hooked

to a whorl
in the lip.

gleam made less
of these mouths

& landed
all over the

street.

CACTUS MAN

Centuries ago
the cactus
man ate all fisher-
man booty.

Catching fish
then was
torture for
patient

understudies
left with
only sharp
bones. 

P.S. Before

men left
the docks, they
attentively
daubed each

other’s
noses
& other
weeping parts.

ORCHARD

I don’t want the ground.  

No wonder
no one

listens: the anti-matter of eyes saved         
           
me from sunk.

Then: juniper berries in the sink, fortuitous, falling up.

I never mentioned there is a heart in my foot.

OR A WATERMARK ON THE PREVIOUS AIR

I live today & the children lock leaf piles up behind a mirror showing the cute angel’s animal.

an angel on its long fall creases fabric, a snake-lured-from-basket they blowtorch.

GARDEN THEATRE

of girl in the
upper balcony

speaking to
mud the

actors change
bottle-green when

the ship lifts 
off watermark

with green wings she
saw, say, after birds

fluttered up to
drop from beaks

new seed.

YARD GARNISH

this new garden lies with
seen lions

down and

water stays

water without a bucket

so seen lions die

so-so yellow

at noon
a daisy

in down, down
in orange velvet