What Big Eyes You Have
Only today did I notice the abyss
in abysmal and only because my mind
was generating rhymes for dismal,
and it made of the two a pair,
to which much later it joined
baptismal, as—I think—a joke.
I decided to do nothing with
the rhymes, treating them as one does
the unfortunately frequent appearance
of the “crafts” adults require children
to fashion from pipe cleaners
and plastic beads. One is not permitted
to simply throw them away,
but can designate a drawer
that serves as a kind of trash can
never emptied. I suppose one day
it will be full, and then I will know
it is time to set my child free.
The difficulty is my mind leaks
and so it will never fill, despite
the clumps of language I drop in,
and this means my mind can never
be abandoned in the woods
with a kiss and a wave
and a little red kerchief
tied under its chin.
Copyright © 2019 by Heather Christle. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 20, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This is one of many poems I wrote in a short period of time early last year, when I stepped away from writing The Crying Book-—my first work of nonfiction—to return to my home form. I was seeking all sorts of wisdom from Merriam-Webster, trying to understand what layers there are to the words I think and speak, finding shiny edges I hadn't known before: new to me, but long-known to the words themselves. Then, as one does, I followed the words into a figurative space, where they invited me to get lost. I'm never able to get quite as lost as I want to, but with each poem I get a little closer.”
—Heather Christle
Heather Christle
Heather Christle is the author of The Crying Book (Catapult, 2019) as well as four poetry collections, including Heliopause (Wesleyan University Press, 2015) and What Is Amazing (Wesleyan University Press, 2012). She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Emory University and lives in Decatur, Georgia.