Fugue

 

 

What word?  What young word to say all

I don’t want to say: birds fail,

their wings trail ash. 

 

My mouth is undone,

a zero, a waiting. 

Give me the word,

give it back – the body

I knew, its heart’s

strong knock –

 

all of it, give me it all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come hell

or high water.

 

Come my vision’s fast fade,

come blank, come feet slipping

out from beneath me.  The village,

 

the field, the chalk dust sky

dimmed to mirage.  I black out

to my knees, red flowers blooming

on the knees of my jeans.

 

 

Here begins the vanishing act

I’ve read about, heard whispered

from wrinkled mouth: tongue

tastes soot, hair grows as grass.  Pray

or don’t pray, here comes

 

the hospital’s face a blue gleam,

the I.V., the sharp, the stiff

bedsheets, here comes

 

my face a backwards ghost

haunting the bathroom mirror.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Find it.  The sore body,

the stone ground down

into diamond.  Take

 

whatever drives me

down the foot-scuffed stairs

to the kitchen, its cabinet

 

of capsules the size of Christmas lights,

the halo of water

glass in my hand.  Sharp

 

and sharper blade, cut deep,

find the fine beating feathers

of what begs to be borne.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not walking much.

Not talking, thinking,

not very much –

a stomach’s sick sinking

 

to the ground, and wanting

the ground to give me its best mud

 

that I might make a new body,

taut skin, tidy muscle,

obedient blood, well-built bone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am the one who lies stem still

so my throat won’t give up.

 

I am the one in the hand mirror

with skin the color of an old woman’s envelopes

 

with one arm reaching

for whatever was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This flesh

can’t be my flesh

 

but some stranger I wear,

am wearing, will wear.  My throat

a circle, noose zero, my throat

 

a knot tightened.  Strange

grammar lesson, this life

and its leaving: am, was,

 

will be, won’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And what if the moon is a cinder,

and what if it burns itself out

before I’ve hauled my nets to the shore?

 

Put one hand in the fire and explain to me

the difference between flesh and ash.

 

 

The Body

 

 

The body took in the broken bottle’s green shards, the sharp, the syringe, two buttons,   

          three ants, a tan-colored crayon, and once an egg whole.

 

The body stretched and shaded, grew breasts, a twig nest of hair.

 

The body wore eyes pink, swollen, grunted for water, a slim shard of ice.

 

The body retracted its knees and rocked down the dark.

 

The body found its foot on a mine, saw metatarsals rise, slick red birds in the sky.

 

The body bucked up on the road.

 

The body could still tell the smells of bergamot, cinnamon, lilac perfume bent over the

          bed.

 

The body cracked open three bottles of Aspirin.  The white pills snailed down.

 

The body spit blood, sand, and water.

 

The body slid wet against body, the salt tinge of sweat in both eyes.

 

The body fell against concrete, crushed one arm under.  The clean snap of bone.

 

The body bore children and bloodlust, died sitting up straight in a chair.

 

The body found water and rest, a blue shot of sky, ten minute’s snored sleep before its

          eyes were forced open.

 

The body stood up.  The body walked on.

 

Six Nights

 

 

I've dreamt it --

this body's last

slick trick, sick cells' rebellion,

white cells resigned.  Waiting

 

for the lab to call, I hear

give up, give in, that old

sad song of razor blades, white pills

in a line, the body's

 

slide into dirt's

dim lips, a fist

flung down -- I've had

 

enough.  Still the body

at its work -- heart counts

the seconds between steps,

lungs pound down air, sweat

slips from the fever's grasp.  The body

 

tells me, Hold on to what

you have left --

this jar of night

with no stars in it.

 

 

© Emma Bolden