pandora's dress (in four pieces) by Peter Schwartz Augusta, Maine www.watchtheeye.com published in 'The Aurora Review Winter/Spring 2005' 1. there are no soft doors in this knocking isn't a joke when pandora considers herself she considers, herself (like a postcard from outer space) she is no etcetera and will not be treated as such she's thanksgiving in a verb queen of undying crickets bittersweet; omnivorous she slides over her would-be custodians coldly as she must having freshly sacrificed her deep jagged medallions laughing each threshold away falling off her bearings 2. she's  been raised on eggshells and calabash slow against the backdraft of her own particulars manic over mountains, hosanna cornucopia before the hour crumbles like bad crackers she could be minerva's cousin, sweating out some inoculable tuesday on a borderline campground she might count siblings in the pith and ripplings of shylock and temporary evidence she might. 3. alone she cannibalizes the differences she strangles out a skeleton key out of old duration she vandalizes her own soul with ketchup ever the correspondent she bruises naturally as sick as a teacup who but her could drink milk and spit out wine or worse, hemlock with no dress to match the occasion nothing to humor the yellow jackets once upon a time, the furies 4. poor pandora, she couldn't see deserving an excuse when the owls freaked out her cadets and left monkeys on her chalkboard she cannot see re- boxing her collection of dead blessings and going to the bazaar without shame too much torso for too little she's her own mermaid more than anyone she knows she knows the silk of widowhood can only be folded

(photo by Ronald Fortini)