She Lives In Between
Between the ocean’s
floor & the dying
city, between & the white
tip of a comet & the high
hum of a mandolin. Margaret
used to complain, Help me I’m lost
in flight. Which direction
home? Then one day
quick as a nectar
starved hummingbird
she realized home is a hovering
& mutable space. In streaming
light she imagined herself as a great
blue heron. She stretched her wings
like illuminated maps across
the glass of a quiet lake. Sure, she
still gripes prodigiously. She talks
back. Sometimes she curses
her Creator. Damn it
God! Why should life
be this hard? But her movements
are so lovely. Her grievances
are such sturdy prayers. Between
a gum wrapper & the 79
moons of Jupiter. Between
the whir of a Monarch & the hum
of the Voyager hurdling
past Pluto to the vastness
of interstellar space. Margaret
lives. Margaret thrives.
13 thoughts on "She Lives In Between"
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Ah
A poem of liminal space (the between spaces)
Kevin
Margaret is an air head. I like her just as much as the Drama Queen! I like your word choices of extremes especially comet and mandolin, gum wrapper and 79 moons of Jupiter, monarch and interstellar space. That comparison of her as a hummingbird, then, heron puts the reader on her pace—a movement of extremes. “Then one day/quick as a nectar” reveals your voice.
Live this poem and Margaret’s thriving.
I see a total connection between the drama queen and Margaret…. just like Amy said. Lovely.
I could feel these juxtapositions and conflicting desires as I read. Thank you. Lovely, and real.
I like so much about this poem, especially the sentence beginning: “Then one day” And I’m happy for Margaret!
this portrait is the mona lisa of margaret
nice.. makes me wonder.
if a nest is a home
the same way
a home is a nest?
( i almost posted one with a heron today too)
Well there’s a great rhetorical question: Is a nest a home in the same way a home is a nest?” Going to look at your poem now!
also makes me think of the neko case song ‘margaret vs. pauline’..
“One left her sweater sitting on a train
the other lost three fingers at the cannery”
-Neko Case
yes… ‘she lives in between’
other womens
leavings and losses..
I was great to be reminded of her song which I wasn’t thinking of when I wrote this.