The Ventriloquist by Judith Skillman

Later, when the voice in his belly

is not loud enough to make him

sick, he explains to the grass and trees

how she wouldn’t go away.

Sleep was a problem for her.

She wore a kerchief

and spoke Greek, 

her apron always spattered

with ink from irises.

Whenever purples grow too heavy

and topple over 

he feels less like a prophet.

Her mop of curls, her broomstick legs,

it’s not that he misses her simple body

made of wood.  Nor does he think

analysis could cure

her complaints, nor stop the adrenalin

that flowed between them continuously

as attention.  A summer 

more ragged than pretty,

and he’s popping up like a cork

from the dusty water

of her drowning

to the surface of his sheets.

Judith Skillman is a widely published American poet writing in an associative lyrical voice.