7/29/19

Amor Fati - Jane Hirshfield

Little soul,
you have wandered
lost a long time.

The woods all dark now,
birded and eyed.

Then a light, a cabin, a fire, a door standing open.

The fairy tales warn you:
Do not go in,
you who would eat will be eaten.

You go in. You quicken.

You want to have feet.
You want to have eyes.
You want to have fears.

7/26/19

Untitled - Unknown

When you finally forget her,
she’s standing in the kitchen.
She thinks it’s something in the water, and it is.
Her hands stop moving,
coming to a standstill in those rubber gloves
she seems to wear like armor.

And she looks out the window.
And she takes a breath, turns off the water
and goes to sleep.
And in the morning,
she wakes up
and makes you breakfast without a word.
Even when you break the plate.

Because you don’t remember the last time you were sober
and the lines between desperate and despise
start to blur come sunrise,
so you’re never awake to see it.
And it’s her fault, really.
After all these years she still can’t cook the eggs right,
still can’t shut up the baby.
Still can’t cover up bruises quite right
so it’s her fault when the questions come, really.
What were you supposed to do.

For her, it was a quiet affair,
she washed the dishes and made you dinner and
poured whiskey till her hands shook.
And she let you slip away.
Put the baby to bed and just let you slip away.
You’ll never forgive her for that.

But what about the kids.
They all say it, they all knew before either of you did.
But what about the kids, and all the time,
what about all that time,
and wouldn’t it just be better to stick it out.
Just hold on.
Just til Christmas and then we think about the broken glass
and the doors that don’t lock. Just wait til Christmas.

And what was she supposed to do.
Let the devil keep writing messages in the mirror?
Let the kids find out?
Let her traitorous hands burn the place down?
So she just pours you a whiskey.
And she waits til Christmas.

And the kids don’t find out.
And the house stays unburnt.
And she wears her rubber gloves like armor.
Like maybe you can’t touch her
if she’s washing the dishes.

And eventually you forget her.
She takes a breath.
And puts the baby to sleep.

And she lets you.

7/25/19

HIS MUSIC - Stephen Dunn

It wasn’t that he liked being miserable.
He simply had grown used to wearing
a certain face, become comfortable
with his assortment of shrugs and sighs.
His friends said How are you?—
and prepared their sympathy cards.
Miserable was his style, his insurance
against life’s frightening, temporary joys.
And when the truly awful happened,
some rejection or loss,
how ready he was for its aftermath,
how appropriate his posture, his words.
Yet when she said she loved him
something silently wild and molecular
began its revolution; he would’ve smiled
if the news from the distant provinces
of his body had reached him in time.
He frowned. And did not allow the short sigh
which would have meant pleasure
but now, alone, was just old breath
escaping, the long ahhhh, that music
which soothed him, and was his song.

7/23/19

To Myself - Franz Wright

You are riding the bus again
burrowing into the blackness of Interstate 80,
the sole passenger

with an overhead light on.
And I am with you.
I’m the interminable fields you can’t see,

the little lights off in the distance
(in one of those rooms we are
living) and I am the rain

and the others all
around you, and the loneliness you love,
and the universe that loves you specifically, maybe,

and the catastrophic dawn,
the nicotine crawling on your skin—
and when you begin

to cough I won’t cover my face,
and if you vomit this time I will hold you:
everything’s going to be fine

I will whisper.
It won’t always be like this.
I am going to buy you a sandwich.

7/22/19

Alcohol - Franz Wright

You do look a little ill.

But we can do something about that, now.

Can’t we.

The fact is you’re a shocking wreck.

Do you hear me.

You aren’t all alone.

And you could use some help today, packing in the
dark, boarding buses north, putting the seat back and
grinning with terror flowing over your legs through
your fingers and hair . . .

I was always waiting, always here.

Know anyone else who can say that?

My advice to you is think of her for what she is: one
more name cut in the scar of your tongue.

What was it you said, “To rather be harmed than
harm is not abject.”

Please.

Can we be leaving now.

We like bus trips, remember. Together

we could watch these winter fields slip past, and
never care again,

think of it.

I don’t have to be anywhere.

7/21/19

The Wish - Louise Glück

Remember that time you made the wish?

           I make a lot of wishes.

The time I lied to you
about the butterfly. I always wondered
what you wished for.

           What do you think I wished?

I don’t know. That I’d come back,
that we’d somehow be together in the end.

           I wished for what I always wish for.
           I wished for another poem.

7/15/19

The Children Play at War - Gösta Ågren

The castle’s high walls
cannot shut out
the lack of enemies. Now
the knaves can no longer
manage to avoid
their soul, this vague sorrow,
and their idle
hands radiate like
useless pain.
Unprotected is the one
who lacks something
to protect himself against.