The Innisfree Poetry Journal
www.innisfreepoetry.org
by Sarita Hartz
GIRLHOOD the year I turned twelve the blood came, copper-spotted and slow as a long-drip leak from the ceiling it was what I had waited for jealously scowling eyes at my sister who started crimping blond hair and closing her door to be a woman enter an inner sanctum of virgin temple goddess legs shaven candle-wax bright and beckoning thighs antiquated secrets exposing a truth sheltered: how to make a man love you I dreamt bangles and babies nested firmly sucking breasts— big ones of course a sweet dreg of coffee every tucked-cloudy visage of poplar-tree weddings, being pinned open-mouthed for the first time a ranch in southern Colorado with sweat-sleek horses I did not know then what I know now or I might have clung to my new-born calf frame a bit longer or still-moment kept my expectant window-pane sighs my unspoiled limbs slack-spread on hay-salty grass balmy and brittle under a soft-sun sky without clouds when it was easier to believe in God when I knew what love was LINEAGE I come from a history of women who would not lie down they left islands oceans between their legs, their skin undulated with coconut and rum my mother's white as Spain's washed walls, her hair the starkness of a night without moon, the vibrant dark they buried their men with hunched frames, buns hung low on their heads like a half-mast knotted flag, let pain weave the gray in, a silvery threaded rug, their patchwork of grief it was the mother who bore me, the mother I became a name I claim now a monarch's fresh body, or the space between stars, vacuous and bright—it was she who taught the word, insatiable we fear that which we might become we hate that which we fear without swallowing the truth in our bellies that we contain multitudes, the throbbing stars, the sky's eternal blackness, we are both/ and we fuse heaven I did not become her before I embraced her, before I became an extension, not a twin we did not fear we were inadequate, only that we were radiant, too much to take in no one strong enough to contain us we stuffed the constellations that were our hips down into our pockets at times but they rose with wonder like the curve of the sun displacing the moon we began to inhabit the glory that was ourselves THE BEGINNING OF US it was the unexpectancy of your lips on my shoulder the kiss that offered to give me oceans, sand, time every speck of infinity in a universe of endings we sank into the couch the people were fighting on the television, destroying their future with words, but we— we sat with your arm adorning me my hand resting on your upper thigh with the weight of an arm floating in water defying some inevitable decline into scream-pitched fights slamming doors, the hollow silence of dead stares and words already spoken
we know the gravity towards disconnection, that the war is in this room, not in the suicide bombers flailing their bodies into amarillo light we know some moments dance outside language pirouetting foreign sounds that somehow make sense it was the way you wanted to take nothing from me in that kiss except my last resolve for an open door, or a compass, a map with other options I turned my head with a whisper of te quiero I did not utter but in the lines of my face, a single path and in your eyes, the endlessness of sea TRAJECTORY on a road in Sommerville she tells the dashboard there is nothing called return only a trajectory of moving forward, the artists know there is no recreation, only creation, light made once on the first day everywhere fields are turning yellow troops are tapering land that never looks the same twice traversing mud that speaks of murdered children trampled for no other cause than being born in a war zone the red mud sticking to boots like the suctioned noise of our stomachs clasped in lovemaking making us laugh leathery couch squeaking in farts a crude juxtaposition what place does laughter have in war? when the reasons are gone is it wrong to take relief in the cave of an abdomen for a little while when everywhere the sand makes bland eyes of different colors the weather a capricious child blocking the entrances with boulders we could have dug our way out but we didn't you preferred the solid insides tired of tortured skies blackened with oil fires nipple hardening choirs of moaning Arabic groaning Gaelic strains of dulcimers still uncertain what to become you said I never loved you but I know that I loved you through the narrow confines of fists a past of open wounded wrists on the arms of widows in a catatonic glare you said I never loved you but I know that I loved you wildflowers strewn in the road olive shoots finding a way to grow again in blood rock copper soil 21 GRAMS if we are an explosion then I will stand there let the wind tangle my hair and risk the blood mangle waste for a taste of midnight drives with the window down in winter and for the first time not be afraid we are not saving each other but melding our wrists tight with whispered prayer the lights blinking layers of gold along the skyline of bridges we crossed in Brooklyn to get to this place and face what we already know we'll take the best of each other and burn it down slow to the center of indigo fire ride the wire of open mouthed dreamers gripping each other in the confines of backseats under an urgent stare and it’s true that it never felt so right to pillow your head on a speeding train without knowing the ending or caring whether we end up in New York or New Orleans but you can stream the laughter through me like rivets in clay you are building up so high an altar at the feet of God we can lie among the believers who are melting away the lime rock sand sulfur spoils of yesterday the glass blowing in a haze of light where we fight for the rights of hopes left unsaid and fumble through the shedding of skin and begin again you can follow me home to a land of no mothers offer what we can forge the dam where disease floods the bodies and no one stops to bear the 21 grams of life but we will *21 grams is the exact weight we lose at the exact moment of our death. Some say it could be our soul.
Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication
|