At Least The Porch by Nancy L. Meyer


 
 
But she rants everywhere are cliffs that
by their nature, she knows, prove the existence of god. How not
chisel away at least a bit?
                                                              Unless we walk the edge
the two of us—thumbs pressing along fissures, motes dissemble in the heat,
rays sometimes. Mesquite roots deep against the wind.
 
                                                                                ∞∞
 
Therefore she said the totality is fire
fed each minute by faggots, kindle of your own making. You cannot
undo what keeps on being done.
 
                                       The flare in her pupil locks mine.
I blister at the unquenched stockpile she dips into,
tosses, never not. Snow hour by hour, quiet and wet.
 
                                                                                ∞∞
 
Besides, he dropped, jelly candies are nirvana, all desire
ceases forever if you never stop. Excuse me, what sense
am I to make?
                                                     Maybe I’ll count up, drop
by drop, his appetite—chin sugared in the kitchen, purple
spittle on the divan. Forty clowns in the car, all smiling.
 
                                                                                ∞∞
 
Maybe she asserts everywhere is sunshine that
even in the dark glistens on your skin. What’s the real
answer to a belief like that?
 
                                                     I slink away,
alone—contemplating the interior of a cupboard and
whether, if ever, the door is open. Breathe bread yeasty from the oven.
 
                                                                                ∞∞
 
Why not, they lie, the world a parchment fanned out for
one day each being to mark any way they want. Imagine
the geography?
 
                                                                They flew off
garments heaped on the ground—stunned by the beating of wings
ripe flesh we looked away, or not. Mushrooms under a great oak.
 
                                                                                ∞∞
 
No, he never hid, anywhere was snow dazzle that
in time would maybe blind him. Is that why
 
 
                                                     I only watched,
mother always—planted in my slippers, at the window
was it at least the porch? A twig frozen in a cascade, late to thaw.
 
 
 
Nancy L. Meyer retired to wrestle with poetry full time, tend to a 96 year old mother and five grandchildren, and pedal her bicycle up the Alps. Poem forthcoming in The Colorado Review 2014, three in Bitterzoet 2013, two winners in Poetry Society of New Hampshire National contest 2012, represented in 5 anthologies.