a rank, thin life I live
nothing to care for but myself
sea surge in a drowned mouth
capable of being what I do
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 14 April 1660.
Cold Press
For we are like olives: only when we’re crushed do we
yield what’s best in us, reads a line from the Talmud.
Is that part of the song, barely audible, of the bird in the boxwood?
Such a long train of years: it’s traveled so far from the station of childhood.
Don’t pine, don’t yield. The waves come back, sometimes with driftwood.
Darker and denser, the colors and strands of old life in the heartwood.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Feckless
A wind set my things
in better order, and I ached
for a serious purpose.
The rain coming
upon my bed, I went
and lay with the wind,
rocking till ten.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 13 April 1660.
In Moonlight
When did the top buttons of my blouse become undone?
When did the rain come almost to my rescue, washing
the pebbles away from under my head? Don’t tell me you
don’t know what we came here for, he said. The downpour
drenched me to the skin. What should I have answered?
Later, I washed my hair in his mother’s sink
while he rummaged in the kitchen, asking Isn’t there anything
good to eat? over and over again. I haven’t thought
of these things in years— Mottled mark banding my
forearm, the place where a fist met the wall.
And that sweater, marled yarn the green
of olives, that I pulled over my head and taut
over my swollen belly when I went out searching
in the moonlight. I walked until I arrived, unannounced,
at a house where friends were just sitting down to dinner.
They took me in, asked no questions, set a bowl
in front of me, a glass of water. No, it wasn’t that I
barely felt a thing: in fact, everything hurt too much,
was too bright, too dark, too fast, too thick, too—
The years to come were a tempering. That must have been
what the moon was trying to say, moving ahead of my
faltering steps: its face of beaten metal, uneven;
its surface pitted yet flooded with light.
In response to Via Negativa: The Prophet Jeremiah.
Chicken
Be a stranger.
In the afternoon, who cons night?
Let my hen tell me
when the mess paid off.
Let be.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 12 April 1660.
Abrazador
“I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing.
Words are the source of misunderstandings.”
– the Fox, in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince”
And now that the stone
has been rolled away
from the mouth of the cave,
and the women with their oils
and unguents have come and gone?
There is no longer a body
suspended in the cleft of rock.
It’s quiet, but not melancholy.
The sea is far away. I am not sure
what day of the week it is,
but in every backyard, laundry
drips on the line: rags, pantaloons,
blouses, sheets. Muslin cases
for pillows called abrazador—
the length of a man, the width
of a pair of circling arms.
In response to Via Negativa: Household.
On Second Thought
A man, a man, a man
came from London, from London, from London
to the arms of a captain, a captain, a captain…
and it comes now into my mind to observe that I have been a little too free to make mirth, he being a very sober and an upright man.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 11 April 1660.
Household
Together in the round house
we were merry and good-natured;
alone, a melancholy violin
called me to supper.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 10 April 1660.
Fault Zone
Keep talking. That way I might figure out how to cross the room. I’m barefoot, the wood is cool, I’m trusting: I don’t believe this is a labyrinth, or that there is a pit crawling with spiders somewhere in the darkness. In every silence is a hidden delirium; in every well, the imprint of a disappeared moon. I know there are trees because their branches crackle; and how else could the scent of jasmine climb the walls if not for their help? An ember has been known to come to life in the grate, even if the stones have learned to be sufficient. From there, I promise to write you letters: every day, something new, like an instrument or a piece of fruit.
In response to Via Negativa: Off/Spring and thus: small stone (235) .
Off/Spring
The fire drinks oxygen with every one of its forked tongues, but it doesn’t spread. In fact, it doesn’t really burn. It rides in the back seat like a family dog. Someone else spots it and gets alarmed, so I get alarmed too. We run for buckets, dump water on the fire but it simply shakes itself and goes on speaking in its sophisticated way. We try to reply, but only barks and whines come out. Children, take note: This is what happens when you play with the fire in your belly, when you let it get away. I fill my bucket again at the outside faucet and carry the water as gingerly as if it were an infant, and peering in, I see that it has inherited my face.