I watch you, a view
whose angles trip pictures up
beneath the footing of our daily passage.
Above, parted, are our stars.
One, singular, falls --
a smoking jewel wondering
and sluffing off the expanse of night.
The willows shudder, and we make our wishes
beneath the stars which haven’t fallen.
I look for anything worthwhile.
I search constellations
hoping to find out how and why it is
I’m here with you.
c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Testimony
Your body is bound in time, cords of colorand streaks of light. Pressure points
and painful lines converge
and this is your testimony. No witness
to bear their thoughts
as you gently come undone.
This is the first day of spring,
and you its first humble wren of sorrow.
You dare look into the sun.
A tiny earthquake rattles a new earth.
You shake too, knowing it will not be forever
and there will certainly be rain.
c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2009
and painful lines converge
and this is your testimony. No witness
to bear their thoughts
as you gently come undone.
This is the first day of spring,
and you its first humble wren of sorrow.
You dare look into the sun.
A tiny earthquake rattles a new earth.
You shake too, knowing it will not be forever
and there will certainly be rain.
c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2009
Slipping Away
I slipped away to Texas and was invincible,
I had no middle name, nobody knew
I was already twenty-eight
or that I preferred martinis at the Ten Club
because of the chocolate strawberry
hanging on the lip of the glass.
I was living here and there,
touching bases called Easter
Christmas and my father's retirement party.
Holiday gifts from Mexico,
but gray space in between.
Living there and here it's easy
to get caught in the middle.
Slipping away was having
no last name or favorite color,
going from Tuesday to Saturday in one breath
and never recalling small things
like the smell of home and the old tavern
in Spring Lake where you can still get a drink
for two bucks any day.
(In Reynosa the margaritas are only fifty cents.)
At three a.m. drunk on good tequila
when I stumbled to my door no one knew back home
that I had driven blindly on a foggy night,
seeing patches of road but missing my exit.
It takes twice as long to get somewhere
when you can't see what's in front of you.
This is slipping away.
c. Melissa K. Dalman, 2001
I had no middle name, nobody knew
I was already twenty-eight
or that I preferred martinis at the Ten Club
because of the chocolate strawberry
hanging on the lip of the glass.
I was living here and there,
touching bases called Easter
Christmas and my father's retirement party.
Holiday gifts from Mexico,
but gray space in between.
Living there and here it's easy
to get caught in the middle.
Slipping away was having
no last name or favorite color,
going from Tuesday to Saturday in one breath
and never recalling small things
like the smell of home and the old tavern
in Spring Lake where you can still get a drink
for two bucks any day.
(In Reynosa the margaritas are only fifty cents.)
At three a.m. drunk on good tequila
when I stumbled to my door no one knew back home
that I had driven blindly on a foggy night,
seeing patches of road but missing my exit.
It takes twice as long to get somewhere
when you can't see what's in front of you.
This is slipping away.
c. Melissa K. Dalman, 2001
Crux, 1992
I am not comforted by knowing
that he bleeds from his hands and his side
while I rest two thousand years away.
It doesn't make tears stop coming
to think of him with arms
stretched wide as darkness
falls over everything.
I cannot be reached by promises
nor by crucifixion. I can't be bought
by words I've memorized and never understood.
My knees bent I
cannot take this drink. Too much
wine already runs my veins
and holy blood is not shed
to mix with mine.
I want to listen
to whispers that have fallen
silent. I know now
how the shallow breath of prayer is deep
and grace is not a word I hear in church
and write off with a grin and wait
for gods to fall over me when I
cannot pray or hope or hate.
The words I want to feel are alive
but not in me.
A golden cross
strung from the ceiling
reflects the lights from the sanctuary.
I approach the altar pray
I will be strong enough to fall
on my knees again like all the others
and believe.
When the wine
touches my lips I am changed
if only for a moment; I am part god,
part anger and I can taste only wine
not blood.
Let this cup pass from me.
c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1992
that he bleeds from his hands and his side
while I rest two thousand years away.
It doesn't make tears stop coming
to think of him with arms
stretched wide as darkness
falls over everything.
I cannot be reached by promises
nor by crucifixion. I can't be bought
by words I've memorized and never understood.
My knees bent I
cannot take this drink. Too much
wine already runs my veins
and holy blood is not shed
to mix with mine.
I want to listen
to whispers that have fallen
silent. I know now
how the shallow breath of prayer is deep
and grace is not a word I hear in church
and write off with a grin and wait
for gods to fall over me when I
cannot pray or hope or hate.
The words I want to feel are alive
but not in me.
A golden cross
strung from the ceiling
reflects the lights from the sanctuary.
I approach the altar pray
I will be strong enough to fall
on my knees again like all the others
and believe.
When the wine
touches my lips I am changed
if only for a moment; I am part god,
part anger and I can taste only wine
not blood.
Let this cup pass from me.
c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1992
Ash Wednesday
I am wearing your shirt
and it smells like cinnamon, sweet
vanilla, Chianti. I watch the clock, humming the minutes
till you come home.
The moon is fighting
with winter’s wilting hands, threatening spring.
I am warm and nearly blind, staring into the fire, one ear
always listening for the welcome whir
of the garage door opening, your footsteps
shuffling across the cement, the turn
of the doorknob and the occasional
accidental setting off of the burglar alarm
cutting through the easy night with cries
sharper than the screams of an angry woman.
Tonight, I’ve offset the alarm and you come in
smelling like bread and beer, cigarette smoke
and draw me to you, weak with hunger and with thirst.
c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008
and it smells like cinnamon, sweet
vanilla, Chianti. I watch the clock, humming the minutes
till you come home.
The moon is fighting
with winter’s wilting hands, threatening spring.
I am warm and nearly blind, staring into the fire, one ear
always listening for the welcome whir
of the garage door opening, your footsteps
shuffling across the cement, the turn
of the doorknob and the occasional
accidental setting off of the burglar alarm
cutting through the easy night with cries
sharper than the screams of an angry woman.
Tonight, I’ve offset the alarm and you come in
smelling like bread and beer, cigarette smoke
and draw me to you, weak with hunger and with thirst.
c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008
Behind the House
I planted marigolds
to soften and color the perimeter
of our shed. As they fade
to peach and die I lay my heart down
written in stone and weathered
by the unrelenting seasons.
My love lay like webs
curled and half buried
with empty husks where baby spiders
emerge, primitive and hungry
and the words can not be read anymore but it doesn’t matter
as the branding never fades.
It never fades. I kiss the sweat off your shoulders
as they shudder and I taste the salt
of dusty boat launches, of hours alone
with books and pens and paper,
of televisions blaring the same movies and dreams.
You sing the low down you done
cheated me blues and chased a million
stinging bees into the mists
fast as an electric hummingbird sucking
liquid meth out of a feeder covered in
DARE stickers hanging off a tree
out behind the house.
Your fists rock
and you drum
the beats of the margins and lines
and in your rhythmic
staccato blasts out behind the shed
you sing to the only angel you'll ever know.
c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008
to soften and color the perimeter
of our shed. As they fade
to peach and die I lay my heart down
written in stone and weathered
by the unrelenting seasons.
My love lay like webs
curled and half buried
with empty husks where baby spiders
emerge, primitive and hungry
and the words can not be read anymore but it doesn’t matter
as the branding never fades.
It never fades. I kiss the sweat off your shoulders
as they shudder and I taste the salt
of dusty boat launches, of hours alone
with books and pens and paper,
of televisions blaring the same movies and dreams.
You sing the low down you done
cheated me blues and chased a million
stinging bees into the mists
fast as an electric hummingbird sucking
liquid meth out of a feeder covered in
DARE stickers hanging off a tree
out behind the house.
Your fists rock
and you drum
the beats of the margins and lines
and in your rhythmic
staccato blasts out behind the shed
you sing to the only angel you'll ever know.
c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008
University Park, Chicago
In a field of statues, you
and I are laughing at the pigeons, breaking open
a warm, ripe pomegranate which you tell me
is the fruit of good intentions. We eat to fill
but the seeds are small, and we are starving.
It’s spring and everything is flowering.
We talk about this, and about the end of courses,
a wedding, a distant dream of Europe.
All this hope, our very best
smiles fighting off this darkness coming up in me.
I can barely see its face, don’t know its name, yet
I welcome it as a friend, become enraptured
in the idea of blackness, as in love.
I am in love
and nothing here makes sense. We drink another glass of wine
and toast the skyline, disbelieving.
c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1994
and I are laughing at the pigeons, breaking open
a warm, ripe pomegranate which you tell me
is the fruit of good intentions. We eat to fill
but the seeds are small, and we are starving.
It’s spring and everything is flowering.
We talk about this, and about the end of courses,
a wedding, a distant dream of Europe.
All this hope, our very best
smiles fighting off this darkness coming up in me.
I can barely see its face, don’t know its name, yet
I welcome it as a friend, become enraptured
in the idea of blackness, as in love.
I am in love
and nothing here makes sense. We drink another glass of wine
and toast the skyline, disbelieving.
c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1994
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