Arsenic Lobster
poetry journal |
Issue Nine Winter 2005 |
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Like Bernadette Would Do
E. Starling(I heard this story long ago) Maybe you are telling her everything. Maybe she is nodding and weeping and resting in the hollow of your shared history. Fourteen floors above the turnpike interchange two young women moving in, phones connected, big unscreened windows, anything could happen. A school of birds lifts from the maple grove, bruise against the sky. At camp when I was twelve I broke my neck diving from the dock, closed wings open, up, and then the slim soundless entry, thirteenth of August, first of June and I died at the bottom of Elk Lake. This would be (just) the beginning, sip of smoke, the summer goes and goes, a tango, money like feathers, the tiny sun-bleached bones of a common black cat gathered roadside and set in a small gold bowl. Recollect the dream, write it down. No such thing as an unsent letter. No such thing, fiction. Restaurant with organic everything. Fiftieth wedding anniversary. Snow melting, mists risen. It's already nine fifteen. I breathe with my baby sleeping warm in her great grandmother's cradle which I rock lightly with my toe. Suicide is sometimes necessary, the disenthrallment of soul that lets a woman say her story. Spoken murder of perfection, willingness to enter the unmarked grave, I was wondering what it would be like to be a boy --- There is a yellow card in my post office box. It might be a package from you, something wrapped in good brown paper, my name spelled in your hand to contradict dying. It looks spring-like below, do you suppose we could get down there fast enough, cross that road without getting hit, try to reach earth before it's wrecked? Maybe you've sent Sylvia's diaries, the sensual pleasures of ordinary afternoon, the ridiculously dear secrets of the human body. Peter, you are my catastrophe, my chronic stomach ache, my sexual, darkling, solemn, heavy wine. Milk bled from the poppy. Gold leaf pounded gossamer thin, pure black bowl stretched to rim a copper canyon. Pink petals. See that man over there pretending he owns the gallery? He doesn't want a bag lady like her warming herself in his store. "Why, I've never seen a bowl so beautiful," she says. "Imagine a bowl as beautiful as that!" He looks up with disgust. Why do these women come in here. Can't people see? A spoon of crystallized honey dissolves on my tongue. I take a sip of water, make raisin toast for my daughter, drive her up to school. That's very beautiful, someone who loves me says. The dead are everywhere. His mouth, mind, the vast expanse of thigh, silk-screened cadre kept deep within the crystal ball beside my bed – Believe the card you draw. Pentacles, wands, unknown man, faithful, dark, an envoy, a postman. Merchant. Sea faring man. Owner of many ships. Bears the chief qualities of his suit. A calm and stately figure. Strong – Tell her we have never made love. Tell her that. |
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About E. Starling |