I would have met you at the water if I
were then without a daughter; I would have
held your hand—a lost sister.
I would have decided on the hour—on
instinctual impulse—when the lower
haze of swaying moods send me down.
I would have called you I bet,
and the moon would’ve been full and
I would’ve ran barefoot in my nightgown
to meet you at the water’s edge.
We would’ve known, I think, not to speak
about blue darkness and moon shafts shifting
across pale dandelions between our toes.
We would’ve slept so deeply together,
palming the stones.
But chemistry comes in capsules now, Virginia,
and it allows you to linger at the surface, just
a breath away from air.
If you were here now
would you tell me my words are not pebbles,
to risk giving them meaning and shape
and to find no shame in their emptiness?
I am alone until I think of you—
my shared reflection, you with
so much more grace, but I can
only build you up as a writer and a fighter
and I drop a stone to wrinkle you away,
and I see my face, blurry and rippled,
brilliant in the moon.
When I was five
I used to jump from the top of the stairs
to the landing with a red cape,
believing if I kept trying
I’d fly
I’d be Super Girl
saving the world from damage.
Many afternoons, my bare feet
thudded the catchy carpet
as smoke rose up the stairs
with the patience of a coming storm,
my father puffing a pipe,
his big knuckles unharmed
from their crack into my cheek;
his eyes empty of what he’d done
beneath my cape.
It didn’t matter that there was no such thing
as heroes.
At least I could fly.
I think I'm seeing white birds
white birds scattering away
from my window, out there
in the cold January, their wings
sound, from here, like sheets—
my grandmother's white sheets—
on the line in June.
The light coming in is white.
Color? Or space?
Like the space we can never fill.
Like the start of a narrative.
Like the blank walls,
these hospital rooms cemented
in their smoggy halo.
I'm crouched over a puce tray,
surrounded by the others in halogens, others
that have found strange caverns to fill in
strange tongues native to disorder, asking me
if I have a home, if I want my ice cream,
if I cut myself
as they rock in their seats
or lay on the couch or pace
the room, watching. We're always
watching.
I'm back in room East-Building #125
looking in a safety mirror
at my eyes, those black spheres
that tell me nothing
as to how to find them,
and my face is swollen,
green in the light.
Afternoons leave me trailing halls
away and around the others, busy
ants that lost their tribes, seeking
something, something close to that morning
light, before you're awake.
I follow the ones that never cry,
asking what they're on.
I stop at the Christmas tree
with it's paper ornaments.
Something deeper hurts.
The homeless Dave from Duluth
whispers to me from behind the tree
"are you getting out of here?" and I'm suddenly
hitting a bottom
because there are no lights
on this tree,
just the glint in his chimney eyes.
I bolt for my room as I unravel, knowing
at the same time that I belong
as my thoughts spin and my body
invades my privacy, it's going to turn too
and choke me out of reason.
I dissociate, panic,
get psychotic, crash
and wake up later beneath
a doctor's light, my body
on a cool table
and I think I'm seeing white birds
white birds scattering away
from my window, out there
in the cold January.
They're not doves—
more like the ghosts of crows
or sheets of paper
that I once
had a narrative on.
for my father
Your body isn’t on this earth
like the others
I still see them, hunched over
bar stools at eleven a.m.
Your body isn’t on this earth
and I wonder where you drifted?
to an embankment
of some kind
to a bed of moss
a nest?
our rose petals we’d sent after
your ashes rotten years ago
your body isn’t on this earth
you’re more like a breath
or a petal, just above the stir
scattering
if I could talk you into
piecing back together
for an afternoon
I would touch
your face,
sober and clear,
I wouldn’t be afraid
I wouldn’t ask you whyv
I’d memorize your eye color
and the way your lashes swept,
I’d trace the bones we’d burned
I’d say my name for you;
I wouldn’t turn you in for all you were
I’d tell you who you were to me,
letting you go
and watch you scatter
softly back across the river
like a breath
telling you I’ll see you again.
Amy is a single mother living on Lake Superior. She blogs at Difficult Degrees (http://amyjosprague.wordpress.com) and spends most of her time working on her memoir. Her poetry and essays have appeared in Psychic Meatloaf, The Survivor Chronicles, FRIGG Magazine, Rose and Thorn Poetry Journal, Escarp, 7x20, Third Wednesday, and DMU's The Abaton.
ISSUE:
W I N T E R
2012
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