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2409 Jefferson Street
Port Townsend, WA
360-379-1086

Donna Frisk

Donna Frisk is a native Northwesterner who received her MFA in Creative Writing in 2002 at Antioch—L.A. Her work has been published in various literary publications and anthologies. Her chapbook Walnut Heart was published by Finishing Line Press in 2004.

The Age of Iron  

There are scenes

that should never be

played out

even behind iron gates

of your mind—the enemy

human

in a milkbath of blood

your buddies

reduced to shattered bone

should never be routine—

the eternal brain-rape

of waiting

for the repetitive rake of AKs

to strafe your position

the unbearable

uncertainty when dark eyes

in a black burka

advance toward you

refusing to Halt!  

the knowing

each minute

each day

as your tank

grinds up the road

the dead certainty

coagulated on your soul

you are going to die

until like the steel

beneath your feet

all your senses

are annealed.

So that after months when

surprise  

you’re still alive

you find you cannot resurrect

that small essence

curled like lead

in your gut

having learned

too well

how to be dead.

We Could Wish for Such Perfection

Its covering forest dark.

Its knobbiness—alligator pear

some call it. Who would guess

what decadence resides within?

Ah yes, the avocado, its peridot

yellow-green, its slippery slide

along the tongue, the way

it spreads itself, malleable as butter,

over rustic bread washed down

with a mug of ice-cold beer,

or chunks up nicely with

onion tomato lime cilantro

transforming into guacamole

to be scooped up on a wedge of bread.

The Aztecs used avocado

as an aphrodisiac. Conquistadores

used the red-brown liquid of its seed for ink.

They must have hated

writing home to their financiers.

All the avocados they had to eat.

The bloated passion after.

Nirvana would be to spread

a piece of toast each morning

with this buttery jewel of heaven

to savor while I sip my coffee.

Instead, that self-indulgent part of me,

the part constricted as a lemon pucker

that could never dive bare-bottomed

into any body of water,

can only fantasize

such uninhibited wantonness.  

Connected

                        Everything is a part of the world

                        we can see, taste, touch, hold onto . . .

                                                —Mary Oliver, “Gravel”

It’s a day

for stoking the woodstove,

for sorting through boxes and files

while the wind

blows song sparrows off course,

while black-capped chickadees

think twice about making

their skittish flights

from the hawthorn tree

to easy food at the feeder.

I prepare lunch—

a flowered bowl brimming

with tomato soup,

crusty bread spread

with soft butter,

lemon-ginger tea in a glass mug

steeping to pale yellow.

On my table the bounty

of the world.

The gray wind outside

gnashing at crisp leaves,

the soft quiet inside

wrapping me like feathers,

fire sucking up the flue—

such a day. A day

with no errands,

no have-to-do projects

poking like a burr.

A day, though half gone,

holding all the possibility

of primordial ooze.

For the Taking

                        It is like being adrift

                                    in a heavenly lake . . .

                                                —The Art of Writing:

                                                Lu Chi’s Wen Fu

Words, like a million falling snowflakes,

            fill the whole sky.

            My mouth is open.

Images, broadcast like oyster larvae

            into a vast green sea,

            seek a firm home to latch onto.

Our rhythms are leaves afloat on ripples,

            rolling into fluid blues.