1. Shadow Hand-Holding
Stiff-jointed, I stretch to write tonight instead of chasing your vague ecstasies. Circle after circle after circle: I have written about you, "I have written about you, for you, & to you but it's never been enough. By the show of your jagged face in the unknown light I know the answer—Not now. Not ever.
The river-rhymes escape with a splatter. We stand in the doorway of a broken house. The pigments of your surprise are visible; they dance around your head in red tinctures. The first sign of change was when your shadow's hand let go of mine.
2. Widening
It's evening. Brodsky's sun sets on an empty stomach. The cool air animates my frame, but inside I'm sluggish. I sit & drum my finger on the cobblestones. Sorry for the intrusion. It's just that lonely feeling again, widening. From now on & evermore, one of us vows, & the other nods, not hearing. We both peel the dead bark off trees.
3. Neither of Us
We built a village out of stone. The emptiness, that thing that swallows sunlight, is an amalgam of dappled mirrors & death. I place my lips on yours. Your mouth is a barbed block of ice. Neither of us moves. Neither of us breathes.
spring/summer 2006; summer 2012
We return to the field, where the sky snarls keloids of stars in our hair. You pull at my light with your teeth. These visions which found me in my dreams years ago are the signs I have been waiting for. They bloat the circumstance beyond tolerable. Your scissors flash between my thighs. I am edged with the patchwork of the past: I have a black welt on my forehead where you struck me last. Now comes the frost, now comes the flood. The cumulous pose you struck after you popped out of that garbage can 9 years ago was enough to make my summer muscles go dark, marbleized.
spring/summer 2006; summer 2012
Dear A---,
at the hospital, a man asked my name. or did he ask me,
who did this to you? bruises & bite
marks crisscrossed
my breasts, there was gravel embedded
in my back. I guess I can't really remember
what he asked me, or maybe it didn't matter. but I remember
the letter on his hat, that blood
red "m" like the first letter
of my name, michelle. "m," crimson
& crumbling. "m," scarlet banners, rivulets
of vermillion unfurling
across my chest, "m," aa lava,
spiny & jagged, characterized by a rough
surface, makes slicing skin easy as
slitting / fish.
you always laughed
when I said that letters had colors, noises have
textures, taste had shapes: the letter
"C" (especially when capitalized) embodies the color of pale yellow
roses—or lower
case "i," the sloppy insides
of a cucumber: something breaking
down. "i" makes
my fingers slimy,
slimy as that night you left me
in the back of that alley, with the man
holding the gun
under my chin
& laughing.
*
when I cried it took little chinks out of me. I stood
on my small red-Michelle
shadow, hurting, hurting her, but I stood there, waiting
for the skin to grow
back, & the holes to close
over.
*
at the hospital, it was blankwhite. not the walls,
which were also
blankwhite, but rather, the being there—
the pain was blankwhite.
nobody asked about the teeth
marks or my tears. no one said, "why are there bite-marks
on your breasts?" they only asked, "what color
is a hospital?" or maybe that was
me, asking myself, rocking in the cold waiting
room, making noises like a small,
wounded animal. I felt the cold: a noose
of ice around my neck.
*
I kept looking at my wristwatch, & at the clocks
on the walls. they were all horribly wrong: I kept thinking,
over
& over: the cesium
133 isotope is the one most commonly used
to make atomic clocks. The number
133 is a frost-white ice-blue ice-blue
which makes it the color of winter, & roses
on sheet cakes but in its hidden places
it is vicious, & very volatile.
*
when I came out of the hospital, my anger was total.
there were no colors, no letters,
no poems, no words. I was still young
enough
to taste my own death in my mouth.
spring/summer 2006; summer 2012
Michelle Greenblatt has been published in The Argotist Online, Hamilton Stone Review, Moria, Shampoo, elimae, Coconut Poetry, Big Bridge, AUGHT, Zafusy, BlazeVOX, X-stream, Word for/ Word, Admit Two, The Anemone Sidecar, Frank's Home, LitVision, Generator Press, and Otoliths. These poems are from her second book, Ashes & Seeds, which is forthcoming from The Argoist Online.
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