The Ferryer (audio only)
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I loved the things that were ours—pink gloves,
hankies with a pastoral scene in one corner.
There was a lot we were not allowed to do,
but what we were allowed to do was ours,
dolls you carry by the leg, and dolls’
clothes you would put on or take off—
someone who was yours, who did not
have the rights of her own nakedness,
and who had a smooth body, with its
untouchable place, which you would never touch, even on her,
you had been cured of that.
And some of the dolls had hard-rubber hands, with
dimples, and though you were not supposed to, you could
bite off the ends of the fingers when you could not stand it.
And though you’d never be allowed to, say, drive a bus,
or do anything that had to be done right, there was a
teeny carton, in you, of eggs
so tiny they were invisible.
And there would be milk, in you, too—real
milk! And you could wear a skirt, you could
be a bellflower—up under its
cone the little shape like a closed
buckle, intricate groove and tongue,
where something like God’s power over you lived. And it
turned out
you shared some things with boys—
the alphabet was not just theirs—
and you could make forays over into their territory,
you could have what you could have because it was yours,
and a little of what was theirs, because
you took it. Much later, you’d have to give things
up, too, to make it fair—long
hair, skirts, even breasts, a pair
of raspberry colored pumps which a friend
wanted to put on, if they would fit his foot, and they did.
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
(for Lucille) Our voices race to the towers, and up beyond the atmosphere, to the satellite, slowly turning, then back down to another tower, and cell. Quincy, Toi, Honoree, Sarah, Dorianne, Galway. When Athena Elizalex calls, I tell her I'm missing Lucille's dresses, and her shoes, and Elizabeth says "And she would say, "Damn! I do look good!'" After we hang up, her phone calls me again from inside her jacket, in the grocery store with her elder son, eleven, I cannot hear the words, just part of the matter of the dialogue, it's about sugar, I am in her pocket like a spirit. Then I dream it — looking at an illuminated city from a hill, at night, and suddenly the lights go out — like all the stars gone out. "Well, if there is great sex in heaven," we used to say, "or even just sex, or one kiss, what's wrong with that?!" Then I'm dreaming a map of the globe, with bright pinpoints all over it — in the States, the Caribbean, Latin America, in Europe, and in Africa — everywhere a poem of hers is being read. Small comfort. Not small to the girl who curled against the wall around the core of her soul, keeping it alive, with long labor, then unfolded into the hard truths, the lucid beauty, of her song. 15 Feb '10
As a girl I made my calves into little drinking elephants,
I would stare at the wonder of their pumping muscles,
the sup of their leg-trunks. I resuscitated a bunny once
from my cat’s electric teeth. I was on neighborhood watch
to save animals, as many as I could. My damage was easy.
My plainspoken voice is a watercolor. I’m afraid of it
as I’m afraid of what the world will do to color. I don’t
think I’ve done much. A table leans against itself
to be a table. I hold nothing but this air. I give it off.
I want a literature that is not made from literature, says Bhanu.
Last night my legs ached a low-tone. I imagined the body
giving itself up for another system. Dandelions tickling
out of my knee. The meniscus a household of worms.
It is okay to bear. My apartment hums in a Rilke sense.
A pain blooms. I am told that it’s okay to forego details
of what happened. I am told it doesn’t matter now.
I want to write sentences for days. I want days to not
be a sentence. We put men in boxes and sail them away.
Justice gave me an amber necklace. I tried to swallow
as many as I could.