I don’t believe in satellites,
that they connect us
alone to alone to alone.
So when you send me a text message
asking if I’m home safe, I pretend
it’s a crumpled telegram from the home front:
Since you went away, I sit every morning
on the whitewashed porch, looking
for you. Stop. The dog chews on the wood
and the children keep getting taller.
Stop. I listen to the radio, but I never hear
if you’ll ever come home. Stop.
But there was no stop at the end,
and no paper to pass between us,
scented with perfume or gunpowder,
just a waiting space on the screen
for my response. If I were a man at war
you’d have to forgive my silence.
I’m not home safe. Where
home might be and what color safe is
dissolve into this black sky full of satellites
as I travel from where
I have nested, listening
to the ocean sound of my own
ear pressed against you.
Red Meat, Bled Out Slow
When my lover left me in Michigan
I ate fifteen cherries from the festival, sucked the pits raw
and held them tight in my juice-stained palms.
Then I bathed in whale blood, which might have been left over
from the stories he harpooned into my stomach,
or from my uncle’s freak diving accident.
Or I might have drained the blood
from my lover’s favorite whale
whom he named Oliver and whistled for
every morning because he was a sailor in love.
One can never be sure.
I never know whose blood I’ve stolen,
and I’m afraid to ask
because it’s going to happen again.
Every time I slip into the bathtub,
I tell myself his fingers will stay
in the Bering Strait where they belong,
but they always seep in and stain everything red.
I can’t even see my body any more.
I can’t tell if I’ve cut myself shaving,
little volcanoes erupting from my legs.
I can’t tell how all this porcelain got lost
in the middle of the cold green sea.
or why there’s no wooden plank to float me homeward.
Send a whale to save me. I’ll cut it open and crawl inside.
If I find myself knifeless, I’ll use my own splintered ribs.
Flood
Inside this church, the wooden beams
that make up the walls and ceiling are curved
the way I pictured Noah’s ark, a fortress smoothed
into compassion. Up front the pastor sings for God
to anoint our souls with holy water.
Noah sang to the animals too, playing a lyre
and strolling through the aisles of gazelles
with toucans fluttering about his shoulders.
But did he sing of water or of land? I trace my fingers
along the pew and re-anchor your body to mine.
You cried for the first time with my hands cupped over your ears
begging for you to flood the room. But the moment ended
with moaning, your voice drowned
out by a fire alarm. I grabbed the essentials. You
scoured your salty face against your sleeve, and we set out
into the darkness, slouching onto the sunburned
ground. I watched as you hollowed out
the earth by handfuls, your forehead lifted to the sky
like a farmer looking for signs of rain,
and all I wanted to do was plant you
in something solid.
No comments:
Post a Comment