I am all suggestion
and I’ve never seen snow this white,
so white it drowns out what would have been tears
to fill the barrels that by some rogue miracle
would have turned into wine.
It’s not a miracle
it’s just an alcoholic’s biology.
My face contorts,
and I cry out like a homeless prophet in flannel sheets,
my skin aching for clay,
for mud, for some desert tonic to fill me
with bubbles of light, the kind that make me spin in circles
flawless as a compass.
Teach me your language.
Let me wander your continent until I am weary enough
to rest in the oil twilight of your hair.
I am a patient stretched out far as the concrete girdles
that bind our country like a faceless consort
being burned like a witch or frozen like a god.
Maybe if I changed my voice,
changed my hair,
changed the color of my eyes so they don’t notice
the purple smoke that climbs up behind them.
I wanted your planes crashing into me until I felt everything,
until I felt nothing, until I felt something as expansive as grief
but something of an opposite.
I wanted the blacklight, the white light, some light to fill my vision
so that I couldn’t see you anymore, so you wouldn’t reflect
as you always do.
Teach me your language.
Let me wander your continent until I am weary enough
to rest in the oil twilight of your hair.
My mouth is tired, a cavern where no flashlights come to visit.
It is wet with love, but not yours.
It is the same fleshy extraterrestrials
that so often come to the same conclusion:
this planet is vague
this planet is yearning deeper than each and every widow
whose tongues are made of black lace,
whose palettes filled with white paint.
It aches, it moans, it waits,
but they only fix their eyes at the back of my throat
to see a transfiguration,
some mystery explored in ancient cloth.
You made your way out of my ocean
with mermaids licking salt from your sand-colored skin
brushing me from your hair.
You have shaken off
the wonders of deep water.
Like a beached whale, you can’t ignore it
you just want it picked apart
and I will be laid bare.
I will be laid bare for you.
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2 comments:
To critique something so personal,
would be crass.
I too know the flustration of being a seamstress in a naked land,
a plumber without pipe.
A lover, alone.
Having said that:
I soon lost myself in your poem. I love untangling the strings of thought you weave.
For some reason this phrase slapped me out of the trance : "being burned like a witch or frozen like a god." I think it was the two "likes" so close together. Maybe the one could be changed to "as". I don't know, remember I have no writing skills.
I wanted the snow to return, maybe it's just due to the time of year. I like things that come full circle, tie everything together.
When I started it reminded me of a poem from long ago, a favorite of mine. I could not find a link to the written version and pasting here would not be proper, so here is an audio link.
I hope this works:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3806795
I like reading it better than listening. I could send you a copy.
I may have more time later but the flustration metaphors were fun. Plumber, in a dry land ? Seamstress, without thread?
Teacher, without students?
Think of any ?
"you have shaken off the wonders of deep water."
I think that could be said about far too many people.
Denise, I have been estranged from poetry for far too long, so when it comes to specific comments, I feel ill prepared. But this is the first I've read in a long while, usually because I have trouble getting started. Not so with this - the first two lines I could immediately relate to, I'm not sure why, and they were sorrowfully beautiful. You have a severe talent for metaphors, and making them interesting in a pleasingly slightly odd way. That's all I have to say for now, except that whatever inspired this, well... I hope eventually all it will have left is these words.
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