If
You
Could truly see
This pain I hold
The fool
I have come to believe
The disgrace
The shame
She
She now is yours
My heart
It
Does not ache
For I have not lost
I
Do not need you
But
You have shamed me to believe you held so heavy the promises you made
You have wronged me to think you would never be my past
You knew my tears
You created these scars
You are the disgrace
I
Am
Free
I am peace
I don’t practice black magic,
but,
Why the fuck not?
If ever there was a time for
fury
it is now.
With this knot
–that heavy one, sits on the chest–
I seal this hex.
Snarls of anger, labyrinths of hate
Disregard of humanity brings you your fate.
I tear out this second knot
–my own blood is there, too, see? We’re both guilty–
Bringing darkness over you
–and this tine, one of more than your own making–
Slander, discord, evil, greed,
Feeding revenge, the barbed seed.
May it grow into a third knot, with thorns to bind.
–my own fear, my own doubt, all the power we misuse–
May it cloud over the morass of your mind.
Hex of hurt, hex of disgust,
Let it push us to do what we must.
Bring them down, I will not wait!
–now is not the time to be silent–
Bring them down, it’s not too late.
As I will, as you will, as we will,
So mote it be.
As I eat,
we watch her totter through a room
of ghosts,
a living room that is anything but.
She smiles,
turns,
tumbles,
grabs fistfulls of sweets,
so fitting for the cavity that will soon
follow.
When we come home,
candy litters the floor,
each left with the imprint
of a small child’s death grip.
Slowly, these walls have become
a cage of bone. Ensnared between
memory and misery,
I take one more bite and lie still.
Sickness. Deep
and buried within
more of our world
than we’d like
to admit. Should we
scream? Should we
cry? Nothing
will (or should)
ever
be the same after
this. What is
the point of going back
to “normal” if “normal”
meant that murderers
could walk freely while
innocent people could
be killed? What is
the point of going back
to “normal” if “normal”
means that our
institutions continue
to fail us and
destroy us?
Your eyes meet mine.
I don’t dare look down.
I must remember not to
steal a glance at your lips,
or the conversation is lost.
I may never recover.
Like a look down
when climbing at great heights,
one dizzying glance
might be all it takes
to send me tumbling.
I am conscious
of every part of you.
Your hips shift in your chair,
and I must be careful
lest I lose all balance
and fall out of orbit.
Do you also feel
the tide of your body
pulling me to you?
like a wave that threatens
to pull me under?
But still we talk…
If so, I would not wait
for your tide to take me—
I would wade out to you.
I can feel you lapping at my skin
…but you’ve asked me something.
Somehow I manage an answer.
Your eyes meet mine.
We have only just met,
but you look back at me,
familiar, remembering.
Perhaps we knew each other
in a dream?
You were the sea,
and I was a woman
dancing in the waves?
Or were you the moon?
And I, the sea?
But we knew each other, didn’t we?
In a crowd of faces,
I would know your eyes,
seek them out,
return to them
again and again.
They feel like home.
I’ve
never
seen myself
as
someone
interesting,
I’ve
always been
called a
“goody two-shoes”,
which
I’ve
always taken
as a
compliment,
I’ve been
told
that I’m
“no fun”,
even
a few
of
my friends
have
told me
that
I’m boring.
But,
I don’t
think I
I have the
right
to be
offended,
because
I’ve
never
seen myself.
Behind my skull, rests my brain;
Safely out of my control.
A crown of sorts,
A jesters hat.
Amongst all others,
I stand to be culled.
My bones rattle, and my skin crawls.
All in all while I wait for clarity.
Deep in the brain, rests a world.
Filled with eyes, and spirals of mercury.
Who am I to deny it’s existence, or to deny a peak inside?
Behind my skull, rests my brain;
Different from the rest.
For my understanding shapes the way it is.
Radiation Therapy: A Baptism
I wear a white robe
It billows on the water
The pastor pinches my nostrils
His palm covers my mouth
The water holds me
The ones I love are with me
I take Jesus into my heart
The tumor is over my heart
Plastic plugs hold my nostrils
A plastic tube in my mouth
I listen for the voice
On the intercom
Take a deep breath
and hold it
I inhale and lift my ribcage
Light soaks my chest
The great machine takes me
Deep into the wilderness
No one can come with me
You can breathe
****
Take a deep breath
and hold it
I summon a river
A rippling current
And halos of light
The Holy Spirit descends
As a heron
O Spirit stay with me I plead
The voice calls me back
You can breathe
And I breathe.
If Mary Oliver and Billy Collins had written a poem together,
They would have had to decide who went first.
They might have chosen an alphabetical sequence,
Letting Collins lead off with a scene
That both highlights and deprecates his virtuosity:
He ricochets around a room, for example, picks up a dictionary,
Sees the word “lanyard,” and stumbles into a luminous poem.
Or, they might have gone in order of age,
Allowing Oliver to coax us all into the scene
That she is about to illuminate—
A marsh, a wood, even a room,
The one in which you lie half asleep,
With the ominous, twiggy Night Traveler outside.
Or where a heron rises over Blackwater Pond.
Either way, in the next part, tension arises,
Though small, ironic details, if it’s Collins’ turn,
Or, if the pen has passed to Oliver,
With the arrival of some glorious creature.
Both will exclaim how, as poets,
They really cannot explain this thing,
Whatever it is, but still they draw us in again,
For the satisfying close.
It’s here that I like to think they’d pause,
Perhaps repair to The Night House,
For a cocktail party where other poets join them.
There’s Dorothy Parker in the corner,
Muttering tart witticisms, having started drinking early.
Walt Whitman, maybe, singing of himself,
Or of the Body Electric.
Wordsworth, popping in
On his return from Tintern Abbey,
Bringing daffodils.
Coleridge, with some opium, and that albatross.
And Sharon Olds, going back to 1937.
Even pale young Keats might wander by,
Still coughing a little, but politely, into his elbow,
Carrying a Pot of Basil as a gift,
Cheered to see that poetry
Lives on, and in such capable hands.
Eventually, the party ends,
And Oliver sets off on her journey
Back to The Afterlife, to visit her beloved dogs,
Or some Wild Geese, or even Edith Wharton,
Leaving Collins Sailing Alone Around the Room,
Searching for the last lines.
A couplet, perhaps, or a quatrain, without the rhymes.
But certainly a salient observation
That thrills us, and feels like a benediction.
