MEDITATION ON WHITE
(TRACED BACKWARDS), RESPONSE
TO ARSHILE GORKY’S CHARRED BELOVED I, 1946
Named after lilies, his mother Shushan warmed
her infants in cradles lined with sand, grew daughters
to face east and hail Mary. Each November, string-tied
from the ceilings, she dried pears, their skins distilled
with rippled sugar and the deathly
look of withdrawal; the fruits
parched as embalmed song birds or small raptors
swathed in Egypt. Her one son, his voice-
box drowned with balsam, would not speak
until he was six, until six spoke only with birds. This,
a small sacrifice for the close studies of such wings, white
doves he let roost in his breaking.
SPRINGS, WHY WE NEED TO STAY
AWAY FROM NEW YORK CITY
Lee Krasner addresses Jackson Pollock
If I lose my place on Rimbaud’s page like a schoolboy who can’t find the cigar box he buried in his father’s orchard and our morning glories decide to stay social past noon, if the seed packets on the dry bricks aren’t restless when my hand moves over yours so the sun’s shadows melt all fingers into the same sober shape and my skin sticks to you with heat and stays there, then I will decide to turn a blind eye to the border collie sleeping loudly on your mound of clean laundry and know this moment’s sadness has no spine.
MAHOGANY CABINET
Forgotten furniture
in an empty room, she is dark wood
unwanted. He wants
to want her, to save her
from rot; grabs hold
of the handles, pulls
open the bones
shelves muscle-thick
where something breakable sits.
Is this a heart
or a tea cup?
He can’t decide,
fills it with warm bergamot
and sees if he can sip,
if the sun flows through
as he holds it against the light,
if there are porcelain roses
painted, if he can pet the blooms
with his baby finger.
He pretends
that it can’t chip,
that all tea leaves tell
happy endings.
That the heart is not
a hollow organ.
RETROSPECTIVE
Sleep was a gift; we woke before the alarm,
lay still in stolen minutes. It was easier to breathe
before the clock radio talked, before
the shower made mist and morning coffee dripped.
It was your breath that kept me, a prayer plant
folding inward without light.
I have stored that slow sound,
your pencil across paper; the scent
of your hair washed and wet on skin.
How you punctured my blister
with a pin, cleaned the cracked scab
when I came back to you, bleeding.
That band-aid was the only thing
I took with me when I left. My body
breaks when I remember your hands,
how easily they touched that wound.