Monday, September 22, 2008
We thought about going back to the palmed path under fence; now only for barn cats and field mice. My knees remember the red lacing underneath skin. In the night we hear noises and know we are animals--we are not alone in the dark of the field. The ends of grass itch through cotton. The ends of grass touch me and touch you and touch other animals in the field. The moonlight erased the edges of the frame, leaving me with a yellow fading. I thought the stick was a snake. The stick jumped up and bit my leg.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
sola gratia
First light is fleeting and
head-ache making.
Sweat pools in
the small of your back,
sticking like peach pits.
This morning finds
your skin three days
from ripe.
Time runs front to back
I know. Think of a
pitcher emptying; a
bed unmade; the waves
spread so thin
I am left with silence.
Every demand
is a demand
for what?
It's the last light that
traps into corners of
our room, bent slightly.
Prisms become one of
our more fluent languages.
I cannot say whether this map
is old or if it is only drawn to
appear so.
head-ache making.
Sweat pools in
the small of your back,
sticking like peach pits.
This morning finds
your skin three days
from ripe.
Time runs front to back
I know. Think of a
pitcher emptying; a
bed unmade; the waves
spread so thin
I am left with silence.
Every demand
is a demand
for what?
It's the last light that
traps into corners of
our room, bent slightly.
Prisms become one of
our more fluent languages.
I cannot say whether this map
is old or if it is only drawn to
appear so.
this pose can only be held for so long
Some statues go missing
pieces at a time and
we are left with imagined limbs.
I will not apologize
for your toothbrush left
next to mine, or for using it.
pieces at a time and
we are left with imagined limbs.
I will not apologize
for your toothbrush left
next to mine, or for using it.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Incomplete fiction
The cloud cast years of my youth can be found in few photographs as, even we, spent little, sometimes none. My legs were thin, tiny little girl legs never touching. I sat at the dinner table knees knocking, a valley in between, and my blonde curls hung heavy on my shoulders like the branches in the peak of August outside our summer home with the punished hills and all their grass-forsaken land.
My memories of the city before the siege feel far away, the coast of an imperial colony I have never visited, only seen in brochures and on tea tin labels. The streets all cobbled, all bustling. The flowers blooming from windowsill pots. Sunlight streaming into my eastward window on mornings when kitchen sounds trickled down the hall--Father lacing his boots up tight and Mother ladling breakfast onto our plates, the ceramic bowl swanning under the faucet.
In the threshold to my bedroom there lay a loose floorboard. I would take a wide step over it when sneaking to the bathroom late at night after hours of reading under the blankets my father's boyhood adventure books, the pages all humid jungles with my hair stuck to neck, mosquitos in my ear and a brave native leading the way through the fleshy thicket with his machete chopping. This specific memory may have been born in a movie I saw later in life, but time has made it, like so many other things, only mine.
My mother grew up in the estate far past the railroad lines, near the southern sea, and it was there we stayed out the war. I recall only the fragments of how we arrived there.
Father left his job with the Louvre--his last days were spent emptying its halls. My mother and I would bring him lunch--a ham and butter sandwich with an orange, the last of our reserves--and instead of playing hide and seek in the sculptures, I sat back against the bare wall of the Greek wing. Men wearing thick black belts around their middles circled Winged Victory and wiped their brows as even more men made way planking wood down the stairway to her throne. And then she was inched down that steep incline, no head, no arms, only wings trembling, each thousand particle a threat. Father stood over me, watching the descent from over his shoulder. Mother gasped as the statue almost toppled all together and Father, his eyes closed, as if to remember her in her place, turned to us and said, "Surely, we will never see her again."
Sirens sang through the afternoon hours, and my days were spent listless. It had been weeks since the schools were shut and the battle line was drawing nearer when Father pulled in front of our house in his big black car rather than his bicycle. My mother came into the foyer were I was lying on the ground, content with watching the rainbows refracting inside the chandelier above. She held my camel colored suitcase in hand and told me, "Colette, you must be a good little girl. You will be staying with your Aunt Therese in the outer city for the weekend, and then you will get on a great big train and come out to the country. Your father and I will be at the station to pick you up, you understand?" She said, "Colette, do you understand? You must be a good little girl for us now." Mother had the hiccups that day. I remember the sun warm in the kitchen as Father and I sat at the table, the boiling water on the stove the only conversation. Mother wiped the counter in large sweeping circles, weeping and hiccuping with her mouth closed.
My aunt's thick black hair sunk far past her freckled shoulders. Her house was much smaller than ours and the backyard had a brown and white rooster. When I arrived she sliced a baguette and held out a piece to me. "Colette, has your mother told you about--" she said before trailing off, her gaze focused some place out the window, skirting the horizon. "Something terrible is happening in the world, Colette," she said. "We must pray to Mother Mary." And then Aunt Therese placed my hand into hers, snaked with veins and loose with age.
Mother Mary, lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth. Lead us from despair to hope, from fear to trust. Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace. Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.
Aunt Therese's eyes were shut tight for a long time after she had stopped speaking. "Colette," she said. "You know the Hail Mary, yes?"
Before I could answer, she was frantic. Aunt Therese took both of my hands, pulled them into her lap and unloaded a white Rosary into my palms and then pressed them shut, pressed them so hard that the beads made pockets in my skin.
"You will be safe where you're heading--"
"Safe from what," I asked but she didn't answer.
"If those awful men come to your house with their sharp tongues, I want you to stay completely still and silent. I want you to take these beads and say your prayers. Please Colette. You must."
"I will," I promised and with that Aunt Therese walked out into the backyard, away from her uneaten bread, and began to lay out the rooster's feed.
Other than that, all I can see is the view from my train seat and her long thin arm waving farewell from the platform below. The land was flat and then it lolled and the stations in between had bricks both red and grey. With every stop, passengers would leave the train but none would enter. The attendant wore a black hat with gold trim and served chocolates with my tea. The corners of his eyes folded when he smiled, sneaking the treat into my tiny hands. Silver stubble gilded his jaw-line. My father would have been his friend.
Last stop. End of the line! rang in my ears as the conductor made his slow way down the aisle. I climbed onto the seat and pulled my suitcase down. Outside the train my mother stood waiting in a pink dress with white lace on her hands. "Oh, Mama!" I said, so tired and happy with the end of my travels. She carried my suitcase to the car with her arm around my shoulders. The station sat beside a field of grass long as my legs and heavy under the wind, saturated with the sun's light. Father started the engine and I climbed into the back seat and we drove into the sea of orange waves, the setting sun, the dark of the night.
I woke in my father's arms as he carried me from the car to the porch. The moon was bright enough in the country to light acres between the house and the sea. All possible futures stretched before us in this new home. Mother said, "Everything will be fine ," tussling my hair as Father opened the front door. My eyes sat heavy with sleep and I climbed into the master bed, ready to dream, to feel everything fine.
In the morning Mother showed me what would be my room. "Now Colette, I must tell you. You will be sharing your room." Following her up the circling staircase, I imagined a young nurse on leave in the country, or perhaps a distant relative holed up at the estate. Flashes of late night talks, morse code across the floorboards, learning how to braid, scandalous stories of dance halls full of soldiers--all things I lacked as an only child all fell to the floor when Mother opened the door to a room empty besides the furniture and a painting.
There she sat. Mother introduced her as Grande Odalisque. The gentle slope of her bare back, the sad smile hinted by her eyes, the feathers in her hand. Mother said it was our family's job to protect her, it was father's duty. She seemed obscene, a spine impossibly long, but I liked her. She could listen to my stories and tell me hers. Someday I would look like her, hips wide and waist nipped, all the unknowns kept inside my lips.
The Odalisque, born Martine, sleeps with her bed pushed up against the window. Instead of drapes she keeps thin red silk, samples she found in market stalls, layered across the glass. The red intensifies the morning sun and wakes her up, brow slick from sweat and cheeks flush. Martine, the odalisque, is a hot blooded girl. Her mother used to say Good morning my hot blooded girls as she pulled off the covers each blue-black morning in their small country home. The odalisque rises with the sun and the grumble of her stomach. She waits for the water to boil in her kettle and rubs the sleep out of her shoulders, her ribs, her calves.
We slept like sisters with our secrets, my back turned to her. Branch shadows slid across the ceiling, tiles of tin screwed in by hand so long ago.
My memories of the city before the siege feel far away, the coast of an imperial colony I have never visited, only seen in brochures and on tea tin labels. The streets all cobbled, all bustling. The flowers blooming from windowsill pots. Sunlight streaming into my eastward window on mornings when kitchen sounds trickled down the hall--Father lacing his boots up tight and Mother ladling breakfast onto our plates, the ceramic bowl swanning under the faucet.
In the threshold to my bedroom there lay a loose floorboard. I would take a wide step over it when sneaking to the bathroom late at night after hours of reading under the blankets my father's boyhood adventure books, the pages all humid jungles with my hair stuck to neck, mosquitos in my ear and a brave native leading the way through the fleshy thicket with his machete chopping. This specific memory may have been born in a movie I saw later in life, but time has made it, like so many other things, only mine.
My mother grew up in the estate far past the railroad lines, near the southern sea, and it was there we stayed out the war. I recall only the fragments of how we arrived there.
Father left his job with the Louvre--his last days were spent emptying its halls. My mother and I would bring him lunch--a ham and butter sandwich with an orange, the last of our reserves--and instead of playing hide and seek in the sculptures, I sat back against the bare wall of the Greek wing. Men wearing thick black belts around their middles circled Winged Victory and wiped their brows as even more men made way planking wood down the stairway to her throne. And then she was inched down that steep incline, no head, no arms, only wings trembling, each thousand particle a threat. Father stood over me, watching the descent from over his shoulder. Mother gasped as the statue almost toppled all together and Father, his eyes closed, as if to remember her in her place, turned to us and said, "Surely, we will never see her again."
Sirens sang through the afternoon hours, and my days were spent listless. It had been weeks since the schools were shut and the battle line was drawing nearer when Father pulled in front of our house in his big black car rather than his bicycle. My mother came into the foyer were I was lying on the ground, content with watching the rainbows refracting inside the chandelier above. She held my camel colored suitcase in hand and told me, "Colette, you must be a good little girl. You will be staying with your Aunt Therese in the outer city for the weekend, and then you will get on a great big train and come out to the country. Your father and I will be at the station to pick you up, you understand?" She said, "Colette, do you understand? You must be a good little girl for us now." Mother had the hiccups that day. I remember the sun warm in the kitchen as Father and I sat at the table, the boiling water on the stove the only conversation. Mother wiped the counter in large sweeping circles, weeping and hiccuping with her mouth closed.
My aunt's thick black hair sunk far past her freckled shoulders. Her house was much smaller than ours and the backyard had a brown and white rooster. When I arrived she sliced a baguette and held out a piece to me. "Colette, has your mother told you about--" she said before trailing off, her gaze focused some place out the window, skirting the horizon. "Something terrible is happening in the world, Colette," she said. "We must pray to Mother Mary." And then Aunt Therese placed my hand into hers, snaked with veins and loose with age.
Mother Mary, lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth. Lead us from despair to hope, from fear to trust. Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace. Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.
Aunt Therese's eyes were shut tight for a long time after she had stopped speaking. "Colette," she said. "You know the Hail Mary, yes?"
Before I could answer, she was frantic. Aunt Therese took both of my hands, pulled them into her lap and unloaded a white Rosary into my palms and then pressed them shut, pressed them so hard that the beads made pockets in my skin.
"You will be safe where you're heading--"
"Safe from what," I asked but she didn't answer.
"If those awful men come to your house with their sharp tongues, I want you to stay completely still and silent. I want you to take these beads and say your prayers. Please Colette. You must."
"I will," I promised and with that Aunt Therese walked out into the backyard, away from her uneaten bread, and began to lay out the rooster's feed.
Other than that, all I can see is the view from my train seat and her long thin arm waving farewell from the platform below. The land was flat and then it lolled and the stations in between had bricks both red and grey. With every stop, passengers would leave the train but none would enter. The attendant wore a black hat with gold trim and served chocolates with my tea. The corners of his eyes folded when he smiled, sneaking the treat into my tiny hands. Silver stubble gilded his jaw-line. My father would have been his friend.
Last stop. End of the line! rang in my ears as the conductor made his slow way down the aisle. I climbed onto the seat and pulled my suitcase down. Outside the train my mother stood waiting in a pink dress with white lace on her hands. "Oh, Mama!" I said, so tired and happy with the end of my travels. She carried my suitcase to the car with her arm around my shoulders. The station sat beside a field of grass long as my legs and heavy under the wind, saturated with the sun's light. Father started the engine and I climbed into the back seat and we drove into the sea of orange waves, the setting sun, the dark of the night.
I woke in my father's arms as he carried me from the car to the porch. The moon was bright enough in the country to light acres between the house and the sea. All possible futures stretched before us in this new home. Mother said, "Everything will be fine ," tussling my hair as Father opened the front door. My eyes sat heavy with sleep and I climbed into the master bed, ready to dream, to feel everything fine.
In the morning Mother showed me what would be my room. "Now Colette, I must tell you. You will be sharing your room." Following her up the circling staircase, I imagined a young nurse on leave in the country, or perhaps a distant relative holed up at the estate. Flashes of late night talks, morse code across the floorboards, learning how to braid, scandalous stories of dance halls full of soldiers--all things I lacked as an only child all fell to the floor when Mother opened the door to a room empty besides the furniture and a painting.
There she sat. Mother introduced her as Grande Odalisque. The gentle slope of her bare back, the sad smile hinted by her eyes, the feathers in her hand. Mother said it was our family's job to protect her, it was father's duty. She seemed obscene, a spine impossibly long, but I liked her. She could listen to my stories and tell me hers. Someday I would look like her, hips wide and waist nipped, all the unknowns kept inside my lips.
The Odalisque, born Martine, sleeps with her bed pushed up against the window. Instead of drapes she keeps thin red silk, samples she found in market stalls, layered across the glass. The red intensifies the morning sun and wakes her up, brow slick from sweat and cheeks flush. Martine, the odalisque, is a hot blooded girl. Her mother used to say Good morning my hot blooded girls as she pulled off the covers each blue-black morning in their small country home. The odalisque rises with the sun and the grumble of her stomach. She waits for the water to boil in her kettle and rubs the sleep out of her shoulders, her ribs, her calves.
We slept like sisters with our secrets, my back turned to her. Branch shadows slid across the ceiling, tiles of tin screwed in by hand so long ago.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Lizzie
Her collegiate years she stood
background, mouth open, words
formed--the wrong medium for
capture. Goldenrod by the sun
light, streamed white through her
bedside window. Said her Hail
Mary in the rector's room.
Said Our Father cloaked
in basil; knees touching
tracing the completeness of
a hummingbird in flight.
By the crate of the elevator door
is the place where the belly of his
hand met Lizzie's soft left temple.
An uncertainty of possession:
was it his pulse or hers beating
through the thinness.
Underneath all sleeps. Lizzie knows
in like a lion and what follows.
Perhaps there are grimmer ways to
love another. Let us attempt discovery--
Lizzie, there are things that cannot be held.
Water falling from the shower faucet; the spin
of the ceiling fan; his tongue on teeth. The clouds
clotting the sky are made of ice, not
whimsy. Lizzie is uninvited to my poem.
Find what unearths: these words become spring.
The elbows of branches, after months spent straight,
now flex bent. Bees buzzing everywhere;
an oozing strawberry chin; the tree outside
stands blushing; and somewhere:
honeysuckle.
background, mouth open, words
formed--the wrong medium for
capture. Goldenrod by the sun
light, streamed white through her
bedside window. Said her Hail
Mary in the rector's room.
Said Our Father cloaked
in basil; knees touching
tracing the completeness of
a hummingbird in flight.
By the crate of the elevator door
is the place where the belly of his
hand met Lizzie's soft left temple.
An uncertainty of possession:
was it his pulse or hers beating
through the thinness.
Underneath all sleeps. Lizzie knows
in like a lion and what follows.
Perhaps there are grimmer ways to
love another. Let us attempt discovery--
Lizzie, there are things that cannot be held.
Water falling from the shower faucet; the spin
of the ceiling fan; his tongue on teeth. The clouds
clotting the sky are made of ice, not
whimsy. Lizzie is uninvited to my poem.
Find what unearths: these words become spring.
The elbows of branches, after months spent straight,
now flex bent. Bees buzzing everywhere;
an oozing strawberry chin; the tree outside
stands blushing; and somewhere:
honeysuckle.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Waves, Again
(the first line in every section is taken from Virginia Woolfe's The Waves)
I hear through it far off, far away, faint and far, the chorus beginning; wheels; dogs; men shouting; church bells; the chorus beginning. A landscape perhaps; of clouds clotting the shoreline; of Texas unfolding behind us; the westward rains quieting; or synesthesia;--feeling your hands on me like the musk forrest bed, October.
Save for these, I would bury it all as I bury these ugly stones that are always scattered about this briny coast with its piers and its trippers. I would send my best homeward, heading onward, tripping all over myself. To be buried, to ask for an unearthing. To need another; to be within arm's reach; and the weight of air replacing sand.
Month by month things are losing their hardness; even my body now lets the light through; my spine is soft like wax near the flame of the candle. I have dripped away early spring. I am puddling, I am creeking. I am bayous beyond your back gate. Once stood a tree, blushing with April. Once stood a tree blushing but it is gone now. That is to say it never stood. Each leaf fell to the muddy shores to be swallowed. To be swallowed, to be within arm's reach, to be laid side by side with my teenage hope, my skin two days dirty, the pears four days too ripe.
I have torn them off and screwed them up so that they no longer exist, save as a weight in my side. I have left you there, in peace or pieces, without a map or stones to cover your eyes. I have renamed you, replaced you, untraced my steps to the spot beneath your window where we would wait for time to favor us.
The birds sang passionate songs addressed to one ear only and then stopped. I have no home. It is what happens when you leave a place for a long time and return to something else. The trees grow taller, otherwise they are trimmed in May, otherwise they are cut down. I remember seeds from the market; seeds sitting in my entire palm; the hard of the dirt; the cold of the soil on my shins; the film under fingernails; my father's hands large and patting earth. Our house was not built; all we had was the plot and our plans.
The sun struck straight upon the house, making the white walls glare between the dark windows. The first morning I woke up in my room was bright and after that my memory is only leaf splotches; the elbows of branches reaching across the floor.
Barns and summer days in the country, rooms where we sat--all now lies in the unreal world which is gone. I read that memory and dreams can exist only in the present, again and again. Father's hand; the trenches in his palms; the scar across his thumb; my smallness felt inside his gardening gloves; my fists nesting inside the thumb. There were tulips for Easter lining the fence. Each spring we'd pick our colors. Each spring we pick our colors.
I see the pear tree through the streaked steam on the window-pane. I see the pears on the ground, surrounding the pear tree. I think of worship. I think of Sundays after church. Looking skyward, I'd tell you to watch the clouds but you would whistle grass, toss handfuls of soil into the air, exploding with green and bone-white roots like some organic fireworks display. I think of pears waiting on their branches, how I thought they wiggled before falling. I think I never saw one fall, only found them on the ground, sometimes days later, bugs freckling the soft yellow skin.
In this silence it seems as if no leaf would ever fall, or bird fly. We are weighty as we are waiting for time to favor us. Flight depends on density. Dependency is such a heavy concept; the densest idea to float; your hand folding into mine; the grass ticking all around us; this is a time of day.
I said to myself, by a lion on Trafalgar Square, by the lion seen once and for ever;--so I revisit my past life, scene by scene, there is an elm tree, and there lies Percival. His fur still soft, his eyes still open. I read that memory and dreams can only exist in the present but there lies Percival. I confuse his softness for a bitterness, the back spread of my tongue activated with each touch from ears to tail. I confuse the soil covering his body as you shovel over his grave for the waves on the muddy shores. I confuse your voice for the sound of leaving, a ticket halved on crease; a passport photo; you're past this; waiting transatlantically.
Tahiti becomes possible. The pit of your knee becomes possible. The softest stretch of my wrist becomes possible. The moss on tree trunks; the bayou beyond your back gate; the tree there, blushing; the radio static ; palms full of grass; Texas, unfolding. The years spent; the time gone; a hand folding into another becomes possible.
Rippling small, rippling grey, innumerable waves spread beneath us. You've grown taller, but this does not mean you are permanent. Find Father chopping down the pear tree, found the roots dead-ending into the cement foundation beneath our house. The tree is sick. The tree has no pears. The tree is gone now.
Save for these, I would bury it all as I bury these ugly stones that are always scattered about this briny coast with its piers and its trippers. I would send my best homeward, heading onward, tripping all over myself. To be buried, to ask for an unearthing. To need another; to be within arm's reach; and the weight of air replacing sand.
Month by month things are losing their hardness; even my body now lets the light through; my spine is soft like wax near the flame of the candle. I have dripped away early spring. I am puddling, I am creeking. I am bayous beyond your back gate. Once stood a tree, blushing with April. Once stood a tree blushing but it is gone now. That is to say it never stood. Each leaf fell to the muddy shores to be swallowed. To be swallowed, to be within arm's reach, to be laid side by side with my teenage hope, my skin two days dirty, the pears four days too ripe.
I have torn them off and screwed them up so that they no longer exist, save as a weight in my side. I have left you there, in peace or pieces, without a map or stones to cover your eyes. I have renamed you, replaced you, untraced my steps to the spot beneath your window where we would wait for time to favor us.
The birds sang passionate songs addressed to one ear only and then stopped. I have no home. It is what happens when you leave a place for a long time and return to something else. The trees grow taller, otherwise they are trimmed in May, otherwise they are cut down. I remember seeds from the market; seeds sitting in my entire palm; the hard of the dirt; the cold of the soil on my shins; the film under fingernails; my father's hands large and patting earth. Our house was not built; all we had was the plot and our plans.
The sun struck straight upon the house, making the white walls glare between the dark windows. The first morning I woke up in my room was bright and after that my memory is only leaf splotches; the elbows of branches reaching across the floor.
Barns and summer days in the country, rooms where we sat--all now lies in the unreal world which is gone. I read that memory and dreams can exist only in the present, again and again. Father's hand; the trenches in his palms; the scar across his thumb; my smallness felt inside his gardening gloves; my fists nesting inside the thumb. There were tulips for Easter lining the fence. Each spring we'd pick our colors. Each spring we pick our colors.
I see the pear tree through the streaked steam on the window-pane. I see the pears on the ground, surrounding the pear tree. I think of worship. I think of Sundays after church. Looking skyward, I'd tell you to watch the clouds but you would whistle grass, toss handfuls of soil into the air, exploding with green and bone-white roots like some organic fireworks display. I think of pears waiting on their branches, how I thought they wiggled before falling. I think I never saw one fall, only found them on the ground, sometimes days later, bugs freckling the soft yellow skin.
In this silence it seems as if no leaf would ever fall, or bird fly. We are weighty as we are waiting for time to favor us. Flight depends on density. Dependency is such a heavy concept; the densest idea to float; your hand folding into mine; the grass ticking all around us; this is a time of day.
I said to myself, by a lion on Trafalgar Square, by the lion seen once and for ever;--so I revisit my past life, scene by scene, there is an elm tree, and there lies Percival. His fur still soft, his eyes still open. I read that memory and dreams can only exist in the present but there lies Percival. I confuse his softness for a bitterness, the back spread of my tongue activated with each touch from ears to tail. I confuse the soil covering his body as you shovel over his grave for the waves on the muddy shores. I confuse your voice for the sound of leaving, a ticket halved on crease; a passport photo; you're past this; waiting transatlantically.
Tahiti becomes possible. The pit of your knee becomes possible. The softest stretch of my wrist becomes possible. The moss on tree trunks; the bayou beyond your back gate; the tree there, blushing; the radio static ; palms full of grass; Texas, unfolding. The years spent; the time gone; a hand folding into another becomes possible.
Rippling small, rippling grey, innumerable waves spread beneath us. You've grown taller, but this does not mean you are permanent. Find Father chopping down the pear tree, found the roots dead-ending into the cement foundation beneath our house. The tree is sick. The tree has no pears. The tree is gone now.
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