.
There are names
.
and allegiances that triumph
when spoken aloud. I do not speak
these sounds or have a country
that edges near ecstasy. I have loved badly,
pessimistic, fostered a hostile vacancy
of fantastical hope. Insolent towards God
and the steady rapture that only comes with patience,
I purchased an industry that leaves no mark,
makes nothing useful
or sweet.
Remembering my waxed-leaf collection held
within hard cover books, and the frolicking of field mice
that burrowed patterns into my head. I sat on the bus and
I was alone. Did I know how fragile sanity was, unlocking
doors, imagining mountains on the surface of the sun?
Snared before my shelter broke
and I could be saved by surrender.
A thicket of needles and bushes trembling with little birds.
Contact. Glint.
Won’t something rush at me, increase my odds?
I could send you away, then I could live
cold, complete as a reed or as an angel.
Science will not have me. You will not let me go.
Remembering seashells wrapped in tissue paper, in a box,
on a shelf, just above the closet floor, counting them –
rough external even ridges, glassy sheen empty pocket inside.
.
.
.Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst
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.
First published in “River Poets Journal, Volume 8, Issue 3”, 2014
http://www.riverpoetsjournal.com/RiverPoetsJournalPDFfiles.html