Dear Ruth

Emily Skaja

Anyone can be a plank-mouthed bird or anyone can be the sky hallelujah
is the accepted lie of hymns. Like a girl walking has never needed to fly

but could if she wanted. If winged & if the wings fit—if fielded, if felt.
What is the difference between asking & asking for it are the words

that we should burn into a field, Oh Glory. Whether you are lost
or whether you are the blondest bird leaned against a fence

hemming in an orchard, Ruth, you are the holy thing I look to.
So explain to me about the habits of cicadas, why only the men

speak, why it takes some of them 17 years to come correct.
All the leaves are eaten bare; yet the tree is not empty, we know

from experience—Ecclesiastes. Help me understand, help me reverse
the pilgrims’ stories. Make them rise up out of their bone crypts

doubled with purpose—bloodied, believing—& send them to war
for their girl queens. War for their daughters hallelujah

as it wasn’t in the beginning isn’t now & never shall be
world without end. Oh but God my God Amen.

Aubade with Attention to Pathos

I.
Wine drunk, ham-faced on the duvet. Cue feelings talk.

Should I have been more detached? Should I not have draped myself
on the heat vent wearing only my socks—like so?

Because he addressed me always by both names. Cooked for me when I wouldn’t eat.

Making Thanksgiving food for himself in October. Patron saint of the head start.
With his dog who spoke English, possibly other languages.

Emily Skaja

2019

Elegy with Sympathy

For the bulldozed house. For the ripped-out yard. For the mourning doves that won’t come back to the swamp, not this time. For the trees planted in the yard when the children are born, for how tall they grow—the trees—even after you’ve died so young. Can any loved field be a churchyard is the start of a letter I’m writing. Postmark no date. I can’t bring myself to open the mail. It’s hard for us to understand God’s plan is the message, but I learned early that the flood was a sentence. An earned blight. There isn’t going to be a eulogy for this. No hymn songs.

Emily Skaja

2019

[Remarkable the litter of birds]

Remarkable the litter of birds cleared from the city every morning
The ones who flew toward the sky in the reflection of the glass
Dead or stunned I often think given the chance I wouldn’t live my life over
I have just this one heart okay I was burned I was gaslit nearly to ash on the first try
From the start I was told I was a powerful speaker I was told when & how I should speak

Emily Skaja

2019

Poems

Dear Ruth

More by this poet

Aubade with Attention to Pathos

Elegy with Sympathy

[Remarkable the litter of birds]

Poems

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Dear Ruth

More by this poet

Aubade with Attention to Pathos

Elegy with Sympathy

[Remarkable the litter of birds]

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