The Poetry Marathon

One day we’ll sit on this couch,
we’ll tell each other stories about
this day and that, how it all went
when we were young, looking
at people as they walked by.
We’ll pretend you’re a famous artist
and I a concert pianist. You’ll make
me a painting, maybe a la Picasso,
I’ll play you a passage from Schubert,
both these things mauve or blue.
Later, we’ll have our garden tea,
with cake. We won’t make a scene,
we promise. We’ll breathe in slowly
and try not to crumple our faces and
skirts, taking care to leave the table
cloth unruffled, cups and plates clean,
napkins unsmudged. We’ll slow
down, down, past the bed to the
ground, past the hour of leavetaking,
after they have turned off the lights,
our sculptured selves lifeless again.

Every time we chance to meet,
you look familiar, nothing new –
that plain, unremarkable face,

so I need to look in the mirror
to make sure all is still on track,
that no eyebrow has strayed,

eyebags dangling from my elbow,
knees ironed and folded,
the neck baked, waiting for lace,

hands kneading the morning,
all past sleepless lives forgiven.
Let me at least offer you tea.

What will I write about? Fleeting recollections?
The leaf motif on the duvet? Shadows created
by the streetlights? They do not leave, they merely
wait till the lights get weary and fall asleep. That
is darkness, heavy and thick with patience
because it has nothing to lose, not even envy.

We were more alive during the war.

What am I to do with you, fake woman
who carried me, blurred face who looked at me,
cracked pot that threw me away? Pointed heels
on the cobblestones shining in the rain, their hard
morning cheeks cleaned by sleep. Afternoons
are for leaving things behind, easily, so many stones
with faces, so many faces looking like stones.

Anna was Anna, but Claire was complicated.

What about the usual moon? Someone noticed
that it was spiraling away, year after year a little
further, each time the breadth of a fingernail,
a marble down an endless slope, useless dilations.
Will the lovers notice? Will the turtles arrive?
Fewer eggs for the fascist gulls, less bigotry.

I could take a drive to the pliant, indifferent sea.

I think, therefore I am,
said the arrogant stone.

Once, I was metal,
but when the fire roared

within the core of the
molten, spinning ball,

I cut myself into pieces,
and rained down,

liquid, faceless granite,
thick, black, and raging,

a father beating up
his long-dead daughter,

hot onto the cooling
surface of marbled earth,

where water carved me,
swallowed, shaped me,

then threw me and broke
my mind until I lost me

till sunrise covered me,
taking away all thought,

so that now nothing more
means anything to me.

.

How strong these mothers are, their arms

hard as steel as they lift their toddlers

out of the war-clogged streets.  Yes, the streets

no longer know what to vomit – blood, cries,

faces that have lost hope; shoes, clothes,

haphazardly gathered belongings in old bags.

Yes, the bags are always old, the hair is always

grey, the dust always refuses to settle; the eyes

dart left and right, afraid to look forward, afraid

of what is behind.

The voices are always angry.  The voices want

to kill.  The feet do not want to die, not yet.  It

is movement they seek, forward movement,

knowing there is nothing to return to, no wall,

no roof, no door.  What one wants is a floor

to sit on and a window to look out of.  Windows

make one an observer; then one is only part of the

audience and has nothing to do with the street.

But the mothers will always be desperate.  Always.

.

.

I can’t churn out wind like a windmill.  I can’t

run from the warmth to the cold then back

again.  The sun looks different every morning,

and everything has changed sinced the day before –

the birdcalls, the blades of grass, the stones

beneath the earthbound feet, the clay heart, the

hands that knead bread dough at dawn.

You saw me, and then you saw me again, and

then again seventeen years later, and you said

I was the same.  That can’t be true.  I thought

I knew you, but it appears now that I did not.

Did you think otherwise?  Yesterday, you were

fearful, today you are sceptical, tomorrow you

will be senile and toothless, and very stubborn.

Let’s not try too hard.  Let’s not get ahead too

far.  Give me time to memorize the creases on

your forehead, the cracks in your voice, the shelf

where you store your precious blue-egg china.

Tell me where the spoons are, the kettle, the

pills for the morning and tablets for the night.

Tell me how you want your tea, the order of

your books, how you swim in the precious sea.

.

.

There were once seven bears –

three were black, three were polar,

one was bi-polar.

The remains of my day –

one boiled egg, left-over corn flakes,

a dab of butter

The remains after surgery –

one left ventricle, four optic nerves,

a handful of vertebrae

.

.

I wonder… can you see it?

There it is!  That plumage –

how can you miss it!

There it is again,

and now it’s calling its mate.

Can you spot it?  There!

Can you see that tuft of grass?

There near those rocks.

Maybe there are eggs there.

You say there’s a salamander,

that one with the long tongue,

and he’s hunting for food.

You can see it?  That tongue –

how could I miss it!

.

.

That certain sadness

of not having regrets –

I’d love that.

Memories of what never

happened, and of absence –

I’d love that.

The dance we didn’t get

to do, the fading music –

I’d love that.

The rain that came and

lingered when you died –

I’d love that.

The quiet of night,

with its stars so bright –

I’d love that.

.

.

What shall I tell myself this morning,

aside from the obvious fact

about the rain reporting to work

again as it did yesterday, promptly,

two minutes past the hour?

My class does not start till half-eleven,

so may I now return to bed to plan

today’s English grammar lesson?

Who will not show up today?  Which

students will forget their homework?

The traffic jam is starting this minute;

I can feel it in my water and in my

bones, but we do not honk our horns

here, our bumpers never touch;

I allow my head to sink back to sleep.

Outside, the light is growing, birds

will wash themselves in the puddles,

then forage for food, chirping merrily.

No appraisal interview about who

gets to catch the first worm of the day.

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