1. You bent my wrist
when we first danced our fingers intertwined our palms clasped it was my right hand and "Who Can I Turn To" was set upon the turntable and left by the DJ who ran up the stairs I was looking up at you and you were smiling down at me and when you bent my wrist upturned my palm you smiled like I can’t tell but I knew I could resist and I had a choice so it all happened in a moment of strangely stiffish precision and when we kiss now I feel like a swan your eyes were so dark and your smile so warm that your eyes kind of seemed like they weren't involved in the whole process like they were protecting us elsewhere occupied and yet at once staring right at me and promising me you were there and wanted to tell me something and when you bent my wrist you smiled a bit wider and I let you every degree of the turn letting you that was a first dance and that was the album and the way your knuckles rounded over was like a golden paw of a lion and when we kiss I feel like the neck of a swan not fully extended but bent gently meeting in grace and holding with great balance with joyful restraint why did you do it? I'm so glad you did. I’ll cherish the moment forever. 2.Two lovers through a hairy wall That’s me and him on a facetime call I, Capulet, work with the young And for my house must labor long And Montague with Elderly Must spend his evenings usually So with the crow that calls all souls I break at dawn and make for work He, rising, when I end my lunch Will watch the evening into dark So do we pass And cannot be Since I must build immunity Among the children Watch them grow And he must be quiet And pure like snow And so we are built in our homes And would betray our many loves And lovers between mortar clay and stones Have only facetime on our phones. Will we meet and face our tiger? Will we triumph over death? I have never felt fear for the future Like thinking of making away with myself And wondering if this great mistake Is one that every married makes Who looks back from another side Forbidding others Facing death And wondering if they are true lovers And will like Philemon and Baucis Lay down together in green fields Or spend a life in counting And wondering against God And staying in line And living in Earthly uncertainty Eating cicadas Like cigarettes And praying for rain. 3. No one remembered to turn out the light. No one noticed the sock tumbling down the basement stair Into the cellar in the cobweb night With the crumbled moths Blown under the stair That gaped between each board platform And behind Lurked the ominous forms of black duck canvas suitcases Jangling with silent zippers And connected by so many dusty be-winged Bunched and wound Abandoned strands Cobwebs that became wads Behaved like elastic when the suitcases were removed from their place Where they cluttered under the stairs And gave the spiders a place to make villages of nests. And when they disappeared, No one was any the wiser, But the sock at the bottom of the stair told a little And the dead vase of roses on the table told a little. You found those following up the stairs from the sock Directly in front of you as you made your way to the light switch, Admiring as you went, the window Cluttered with tiny vases, Dusty holiday cards And the whooshing vent, The lost pile of opened mail and scraps of paper, In a house where so much came in Amidst a flurry of activity That did not desist when one crossed the threshold As one might have planned for it Depended on it Built an idea of a quiet life So industriously so as to never achieve That which piled up in the chairs That which cluttered under the stairs. Were the suitcases a destination any more Any more like what one might have wanted originally? Any of the escape One of many attempted escapes? Did one succeed in life when the object of everything Was so frustratingly unachievable in itself And the piles of strange urgent items Were just so many fruitless Just steps really In the direction of something, Some goal, some object of the happy home. The happy, safe place Here between birth and adulthood for the children And a guardianship and duty for a parent Whom ever so deeply Worked and worked at the safety To make things make sense. And when things rolled down the stairs, When things were missed or unintended or didn’t fit, Sooner or later the parents would have to come to grips with the unavoidable truths Like that which is so difficult to accept about watching children grow up Their earliest memories, The ones that made sense That THEY allowed to be the pieces of their future (did I say furniture?) Those that made the pattern of their coming memories and experiences That they were kind of wound like clocks Or set upon the world like zombies Or to be loved cherished guided and protected To be guided against the grain of their fates To be denied the very actions of their instincts To be shepherded along in safety To be safely delivered into an age that not even the anxious parents had achieved yet. Some kind of over-the-hill promise of delivery from the windings of fate? Is this what the house represented? The little things The pushings and musings and deep devoted dedication of parenthood? And what of the marriage And how that began? Did anyone notice when the grain was chafing When the world was like a thorn bush When the two had to defend themselves at every turn And was that the reason for the home? When in another imagined life, A path seemed so much clearer But against the very grain of their own against-the-grained upbringing. Continue the work They mused and wondered They took time to think They cherished in kissing They kissed with their own particular kind of passion And in doing In building Began their life’s solemn work. And no one noticed the sock tumble down the stairs. Or the suitcases when they were gone Only the cobwebs now that their home was revealed. When in marriage Like a sand grain in the mouth of an oyster Irritates and forms a pearl So the house became a home And was there some bitter wondering Some longing for the reason behind diamonds? Could diamonds represent a kind of loss? The kind that only some hearts, Not ours, Could withstand? Are diamonds the only true marriages? And how long till the house outwears its use? How long? Unless it be passed on to children And what then? In old age, When fate has been outworn Then will we be with that person In whom our soul finds rest? Or is that feeling Of flying without fear Is that a momentary kind of love That lets us know Of life on Earth That happens after death on Earth A thing like heaven We actually save Deep within our hearts Like the knowledge of faith Too beautiful for us to kiss Too perfect because we are imperfect In thinking that Had I but strayed a little... But life on Earth And life in heaven I have both And with whom my soul finds rest Is that the one I’m meant to be with Maybe only in dreams I dreamed Busy at work Building a life Never noticing the sock tumbling down the stairs Always insisting on honesty in the face of so much resistance No matter where I turned And becoming quite hilarious to children I watched my parents Finding a deep kind of happiness Within a pearl of comfort That’s what it was. Giving things to God Like my mistakes My help in the stories of others hard at work My role or contribution My moments of clarity My own successes My own failures. I feared starting out In the future That I would have to be selfish one day And that’s part of the reason for the pearl The home A daily selfishness And a place for impotent selfishness and safety And community and love And peace on Earth And imperfection. What if I had strayed a little. And what is the purpose of humanity? And what is the meaning of all this talk around me? Better to have lived I try to say As I look with some concern At a path paved before me By hands that have carefully kept me from my fate That shape me decidedly against the grain That shepherd me And teach me to work And what is the purpose of all of this? Can I find balance in this? The sock that tumbles down the basement stair Is supposed to be the beginning of a mystery But one that no one wants to see And so that’s what it shall continue to be. And I will try to sort out the meaning of “me,” And maybe decide to be married To someone who understands that meaning Rather than to someone who like a mirage mirror Makes me feel like someone I selfishly feel I ought to be I want to love with humility And that’s the meaning of me. A mix of the present a mix of the past A mix of my parents love and my own And in that mixed up moment An uncertain but decided leap That’s what marriage means to me And I don’t expect it to ever be anything different. I swear I won’t want more. I’m going to love with an emphasis on faith. With a prayer for a better world And with a version of self confidence That is ok with imperfection. Its all getting a little muddled and messy but I just want you to know I won’t give up.
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AuthorWe are Kieran and Michelle, two 32-year-old William & Mary grads living in Virginia. Archives
March 2024
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