Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Remnants (draft 3 or something)

The Remnants


This is the body in bed that has always been the body in bed.
This is the restless animal of love.

*

Each time you bury your face in him, say,
I can’t stay until tomorrow. Soon, it becomes years of him
carrying you up steps, nose nestled in the crook of a neck,
his pulse on the far shore bumping against your lips.

*

Nights, we make the long prayer of love—
for fear of heaven, for fear of the body’s flight.

*

Remember when you were young and didn’t know
what the word men meant? You thought it was like
two gears grinding against each other,
the coat of grease smeared across your legs.

*

—Darling, I have heard your secret sounds repeated
in other mouths, but nobody, nobody makes your silence.

*

Now you say, I want to get this history out of my body,
say, Please let us leave this Pantheon of loss.
He tells you, This is the last time we are young before we die.
You say, We will never burn to the bottom of this wick.

*

We return to the days when gods were nothing to fight
against and wonder: What is this soft beast against the veins?

*

You were rough with your virginity, like it was a scrape
of the knee, or sudden afterthought. And now your mother
is saying, You dumb, fool girl. God gave us nothing
if He gave us only the power to say Yes.

*

She has wrapped up in her the thick cord of belief,
strong like a tendon, a fistful of hair.

*

This time on your knees you say, Mother,
fold me up again like a paper crane, put me in a pocket
on your body. I don’t want to walk these treacherous lands,
and if only my feet don’t touch the ground—

*

We have learned all the ways to love,
but no one once taught us how to stop.

1 comment:

  1. + I really like the image of a "restless animal of love"
    + I know we joke that all your poems are sexual, but seriously, this one totally is. Your secret sounds?
    + This poem seems to me to be examining "love," or at the very least, physical relationships between lovers. The speaker appears to be female, which I kind of gathered from the emphasis on virginity and the relationship with the mother. Though, of course, I could be wrong.
    + It is intriguing how the speaker notes that we learn how to love on our own, but that there doesn't seem to be a way to stop, even if we find that we keep getting hurt.
    + The speaker longs for a relationship that is uncomplicated but also comfortable and stable in a way.
    + I like the use of asterisks--I noticed that Marie Ponsot did this in some of her poems, so I am wondering if you have been reading her, too.

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