February 12th: Thoughts While Shovelling
I wanted to marry you like the light
and forget you like the dark. I wanted to promise you something,
then give you
A thousand times what I’d promised, then take it away,
Then give it back again.
“Letter from God”
Ruth L. Swartz
Maybe that’s what goes into the making
of a man and woman: the carousal demands
the caress of desire that raises hips to lips
that ends in the arch of a spine aching to the scalp
It’s physical like this it breaks like this:
it’s pollen in the deepest basin of the bloom
and the bee needing it all gets lost
in all the folds of flesh and vein
and suffocates while the bloom blushes
in what? shame? victory? we know
honey bees we know even if they beat
the rain only some of the time--we know
coming back with their life in their crop
one drop is dying one! is like the weight
of knowing it’s gone
too far yet nothing at all except dying
stops it
and in the meantime babies
and they live
they nearly die they thrive
they are open mouths
and two sets of teeth they are mountains
and floors of volcanoes I don’t know how to follow
or even if I should or am meant to
while I was getting sick yesterday while my coughing brought
my nerves out like a brand while the cold boots
on my feet sealed my fate for the day
while I moved the snow again to make way for more
while I scooped what I could away from the stone Buddha
I wondered: what’s driven me to this? All these years trying
and I can’t
slow down my heart I think too much I don’t
think enough I shouldn’t think at all
I should be instinct homing in to the brief foam
and fly on through my sins
are too many I’ve never sinned I’ll never repent
I’ll neve be able to repent
enough
if I could turn the snow into an apple orchard
or an orange grove and choose the lupines
instead but I don’t even know do lupines need bees
I couldn’t save my mother I was saying to the snow to the shovel to my back to my hips
throwing it all she didn’t reach for my hand when I knew enough to reach
for hers and when I took my hand away...
but I never took
my hand away
it’s hanging there still
it’s a branch on the one tree in the yard
it’s twigs in February
it’s pieces of bark flake lifted by the wind
it’s gloveless it’s not ready
for the blizzard
it’s only ever known blizzards
I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about
bee blossom spring the nub the full on erection
the taking it all in without guilt without burning without thinking
surrounding it with every soft part of me willing away the broken window
shards that call out whore or mother or drunk or
let me touch into you enough to suffocate
all but the basic bone all but what you’ll need
to carry the shovel back to the house.
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