Touchpoint       for Melinda Burczycki

Let's bewitch panes of glass

Glazing storefront displays--

At twilight I stare

Into empty tableau,

See Isabelle, Dad's

Sister I'll never meet,

Working as window

Dresser at Sak's,

In Detroit, 1940.

She mounds floorboards

Of her stage

With gypsum snow drifts,

Fabricates an imploring 

Tree of Love; the branches

Curve like atria, snare

Silk-lingerie arabesques

With its briar.

Across from tree,

A female mannequin

Sits in boudoir chair,

Her head tilts to side,

Figure wears quilted robe,

It angulates her lithe 

Form, provides softness

And concealment;

Is she waiting for a lover,

Or has the lover gone?

Isabelle dusty with bogus snow,

Notices me observing her

And taps on front glass--

I'm holding my sketchbook

And pencils,

She scrutinizes my face,

The resemblance to her

Brother must be striking--

Soon Issy

Will have two heart attacks

And perish;

She watches me walk away

Down 2nd Avenue

Under an ombré sky,

Until we both disappear--

Laura Stickney 2025

Notes:

photograph of Isabelle Stickney's 

store front lingerie display, Sak's

Department store, Detroit, Michigan,

1940's

 

Total Lunar Eclipse, March 2025

for "Moonie" Haddow Fall, born in November 1852,

who like her great-grand daughter, looked often at

the moon.

No sharp paring, but the shadow of Earth's sleeve

Between Sol and its silver ornament--

By porch light I draw Moon receding,

No sharp paring, but the shadow of Earth's sleeve

Makes lunar brightness aggrieved,

And stains orb rufescent.

No sharp paring, but the shadow of Earth's sleeve

Between Sol and its silver ornament.

Laura Stickney 2025

Notes:

paring--hard-edged shape

Sol--the sun

rufescent--tinged reddish brown

progressive drawings of lunar eclipse, 

March 2025 by Laura Stickney.

 

Enewetok Atoll, 1954

Tiny murex snail shell, talisman of sorrow,

Shaped like grenade or pandanus that's cracked,

Foundling from despoiled sea and atomic gallows.

Tiny murex snail shell, talisman of sorrow,

Left behind in diaspora that followed;

All poisoning traveled thru marrows intact.

Tiny murex snail shell, talisman of sorrow,

Shaped like grenade or pandanus that's cracked.

Laura Stickney 2025

Notes:

Enewetak Atoll-- Large atoll of islands

in the Marshall Islands. Forty-three 

atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted

by US military in Enewetak Atoll from 1948

to 1958. Enewetak Atoll is still radioactive

today. Contaminated soil is stored on site

within a huge concrete dome that itself is

cracking.  

Murex-- Marine gastropods. The snail shell

in photograph is a Tenguella granulata from

Enewetak Atoll.

Pandanus-- A tropical plant with fibrous, edible

fruit.

Diaspora-- At Enewetak Atoll, prior to nuclear

tests, people of Enewetak experienced forced

dispersion and removal from their original

homeland. They developed illnesses from

radioactive fallout and widespread contamination

throughout the area.

Photograph of murex snail shell by Laura Stickney

 

                                                     

Peche-Merle, France

Spotted horses depicted

On cave walls

Are riderless,

Disembodied hands

Rise over dappled

Flanks;

Burnt-bone pigments

Blown through reeds,

Fix gestures eternally--

Hands reach for equine

Belly,

Touch muzzle,

Crest backbone.

The mural's territory

Is dotted with aerosolized

Bursts--

Denoting continuum

Between beings.

It's now believed the palms

Are feminine hands:

Women navigated caves,

Ground red ochre,

Pounded carbonized matter,

Noticed rock outcropping

Mirroring a mare's head, neck

And chest.

As artists painted

Their limestone chamber,

They overlapped the horses,

Because they recalled herds

Grazing in sunlit world.

And then women emerged

From stoney entrails, befriended

Their subject matter,

               And rode, rode, away--

Laura Stickney 2025

Notes:

Peche Merle is a cave in France.

It houses paintings at least 29,000

years old.

Peche Merle paintings contain negative

hand stencils made my blowing paint

around an actual hand placed against 

rock wall.

Red ochre, iron oxide, is an intense 

red orange color.

 

Wings of Weeds           for Vilma Mendillo

Butterfly with wings of weeds,

Drills rooty legs

Into riser seam

Of outside step;

The landed volant's

Fore and hind wings

Are formed out of 

Milk-thistle hackle

And spur.

A butterfly with wings of weeds

Does not flutter

But casts about the city,

As refuse, as surveyor:

Sees--

Elderly women dressed in black,

Forage for dandelion greens

Through patches of scrub,

Near freeway ramp.

Watches--

Young man behind drive-thru,

Cut hair of youth seated in

Swivel chair; both are obscured

By foliage.

Observes--

Lone figure wearing robe,

Crawl up muddy, root-strewn hill

Adjacent major intersection.

Butterfly with wings of weeds,

Colors of blush and tourmaline,

Descends to disturbed median;

Will exude tall stem in summer

Marked with purple flowerheads,

To confer its ancient balm.

Laura Stickney 2025

Notes:

volant--In heraldry, a being depicted

with its wings extended.

tourmaline--a gemstone in colors of 

red and green.

photograph of milk-thistle plant by

Laura Stickney

 

 

Records 1937

Little orange cone shell

Poises on edge

Of the Jaluit dock where

Amelia sits

After being captured

By Japanese soldiers

With her navigator Fred,

Following the downing

Of their plane

Onto coral atoll--

Little orange cone shell

Poises on edge

Of Jaluit dock,

Is not visible in clandestine

Photo of scene

Being taken from afar--

But there's the cargo ship,

Kōshū,

Towing Amelia's broken 

Electra on a barge,

As the injured Noonan

Grasps signpost on dock,

His hairline bright

In tropic sun--

Amelia stares at her plane,

Her bob-cut

A signature, her rounded

Shoulders I share,

That short sleeved-shirt

With bunched collar,

She often wore at home--

Little orange conus,

Records its journey

On the outside of its shell--

Triangles like pointers

Document waves and growth;

Amelia and Fred being brave,

Were fixed in brief moment

By recorder,

With many more clues

Through the years,

But we are told to not believe

Our eyes, to not connect sequences--

If a little shell can do it, why can't we?

Laura Stickney 2025

Notes:

Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan vanished

on the last leg of their round-the-world flight,

July, 1937.

Top photo-- is a covert image of Jaluit dock,

Marshall Islands, taken by an unknown

photographer.

Middle photo-- is right-half detail of the above image

showing larger ship Kōshū beyond dock towing Electra

Plane, Amelia sitting on dock's edge, her back facing 

photographer, and Fred, farthest to left on dock's far

corner near electricity poll.

Conus shell--type of shell found at Jaluit Atoll.

Shell patterns are a diary of the animal's 

life that can be read.

Laura Stickney, poet, has researched the story

of Amelia Earhart for many years. 

 

Solar Eclipse, July 11, 1991

The blazing coin, to be viewed askance,

Was bitten on my birthday--

Through mylar lens I glanced

The blazing coin, to be viewed askance,

And sketched its orbicular parlance

Of redaction and array--

The blazing coin, to be viewed askance,

Was bitten on my birthday--

Laura Stickney 2025

notes:

photograph--drawings of July 11,1991, 

solar eclipse from my journal, dated same day.

askance--with a side or oblique look

orbicular--circular or spherical; rounded out

parlance--language style, conversation

redaction--blocking out of sections