Renée Ashley

ashley

from Basic Heart

Contents

  Biography
  The Map Is of      Another World
  Invitation
  The Things We      Said Are Much      Maligned
  What the Dark Was   Heart as Metaphor
  Self-Portrait on a      White Table
  She Refuses to      Believe in      Dreams
  Lines for the      Disengaged      Heart
  What Will Not Help      You
  The Roof Is Askew,      The Sky Falls In
  Death Is a Hat
  Capsule
  Desire Is Naked
  White (I)
  White (II)
  How Little We Can       Only Be
  A Poem about Not      Quite Getting It      (But Not an      Aphasic Poem      in the Least)
  A Nice Poem in
     Praise of Sex
     To Make Up for      the One That      Wasn't So Nice
  Heart Beneath a      Door
  Charity
  Poem about the      Cages With a      Sentence from      Wallace Stevens
  I Am Still Here

 

A Web Chapbook from
The Literary Review


 Renée Ashley

from Basic Heart


WHAT WILL NOT HELP YOU

Not the tail of the dog, not the canopy
Of the trees, not six years in bed
With your lover. Not boredom. Not
Math. Not even the cumulus of your sorry
Heart knocking. Not the lightning of desire.
Not the door locking behind you. Not
The door locking before you. Not even
In good light. Not the window or the floor.
And not the tin trap of the heart.
Not the red-painted two-fisted heart.



First published in Crab Orchard Review