In Accelerated Silence Brooke Matson (epub e reader .TXT) đ
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- Author: Brooke Matson
Book online «In Accelerated Silence Brooke Matson (epub e reader .TXT) đ». Author Brooke Matson
The day they removed the second tumor
from his brain, I stumbled into the garden.
There it stood, silver-limbed and hardy
in the noonday glare. I borrowed an axe.
Hacked it down to an ashen foot. Snapped
the long limbs into sticks.
Months after the funeral, now strong enough
to venture out of doors, thin
and swathed in a robe, what a shock
to see it full and flourishing and larger than beforeâ
hummingbirds dashing between branches
like watercolor brushes.
LITHIUM
Fine like talc. The dust of doves. Faith
you can rub between fingers.
I know you want to believe in objectivity
but let me tell you: your perception
of this moment floats like a darkroom photograph
in a wash of chemistry. Clarity
is what you desire. The fine details. The iris
of his eye daring into focus. I can give you clarity.
I was the red in first firesâa restless, reactive alkali.
When Robert Lowell slept on poetsâ lawns
and believed he could halt
traffic with his arms, I recognized the deficiency
in his rabid mania, his melancholia. Listenâ
happiness hinges on a fulcrum
of salt and light. David Lovelace said, Iâve been accustomed
to mysteries, holy and otherwise. And donât you want
both water and wine? Divine and human?
Illumination by intermediary
is still illumination. I can be that.
I can be that for you. Lovelace also said,
Some of us take communion or whiskey
or poison. I lay out my wares
and like a scattered flock of rock pigeons
you come tottering to the bread.
SONNET ON A HOOK
Her white-limbed torso flails into your palm
just like the salmon you caught as a boyâ
your first fish. The crescent moon of its hip
beat silver on the belly of the boat,
eyes wide and mouth agape. The tightened line
flecked the deck with red, made you sob and beg
to throw it backâto end those brutal oscillations.
Now the perpetual vowel
of her anatomy opens, slaps your palm,
and you are hook and lure and gasping boy
both caught and catching in a womanâs hip
so that she bows and arcs supine, a boat
unmoored, her jaw unhinged. Let go the line
of where her body breaks and yours begins.
ODE TO A ROTTING APPLE
And it occurred to me, standing there in that bleak, cavernous space, that nobody is ever just one thingâŠ. If the multiverse was about choices, and all possible choices were being made, then we might be all those things and everything in between.
âA.W. HILL
Consider yourself a red house
containing five
slender black doorsâeach containing
a different house
in a different country
Choose one
Turn the knob like a period that extends
to commaâthat softens the milky
page of your ribs
Let your bruise be passage
to your escape / exit / entry
Be trajectory
gnarled little snake-root
cracking the rim of a seedâellipsis
at the end of the book
Hum at a frequency
only the dead can hear
Let gravity hold you / unfold you
into a thousand roomsâone for each
variety of your kind
Recite their namesâremember nothing
decides the fate of a body
that speaks the language of infiniteâthe lexicon
of overcomeâand this is not their house
their doors
Utter an impossible thingâunfurl green
syllables from a new tongue
Be multiplicity
blossoms freed over the field
Be Honeycrisp / Granny Smith /
Braeburn / Gala / Ambrosia
Construct a new stanza
AMARYLLIS
the amaryllis split this morning into scarlet
tonguesâafter I made love to him or rather
to his ghostâitâs the same now to my body
sometimes I cry but today something shuddered
loose inside me and my brain recited God
from Godâlight from lightâtrue God from true
God and on and onâthe whole creed
rushed back to meâI hadnât spoken it in years
and only then in communion with strangers
who filled in gaps where my lips
stumbledâhere it was in its entirety
whole beautiful versesârepeating like a song
only weeks ago the amaryllis was a tight fist
on my windowsillâabsorbing the thin
light of winterâthe ice is so thick
it will never release usâGod from God
light from lightâone plus one plus one
does not equal three but one againâafter it wilts
when I cut away the headâanother
will rise in its placeâand another after that
and another after that
ALCHEMY
since our bodies last kissedâI cry
crossing the ocean between my thighs
it used to be enough
to be a single woman sailing
through her own bodyâsteady
and determined
but now I am rudderless
and longing buoys me toward
the ridged fire of the horizon
into which gulls wheel
and disappearâthe crucible
where sailboats melt to goldâarc wide
into the hip of evening
what is it we carve
into each other when the waves
swallow usâwhen we surface
like survivorsâunclear
whether weâve woken in paradise
or deathâthe story
necessitates we continue
that the salt-burned body
keeps breathing
ODE TO THE RETURNED
Give me the wolves that returned to the sea
eons ago when ocean was old hat and every
mammal was walking. Give me the sledge
of their legs into surf, the sheet of salt
drawn across matted furâa lullaby
forgotten. The slow erase of an amber iris
for a star of obsidian, the algorithm
of wind for the gloss of current.
Claw for fin. Fur for skin. Give me their cold
freedom, the period
of sun dimming, then blotted
by depth. Give me the wide comb
of their bellies, throats like sieves,
the ocean passing through themâgrowl
turned to howl, turned to song.
ODE TO THE SUN
cracking the boughs
of my neighborsâ pines
with your lightâ
your first appearance
in what feels like months
let me stand in my bathrobe
one foot in the pantry
the other in the kitchen and lean
to the left
so your fire
finds my irises
I want to be
blinded so when I close
my eyes even then
you are with meâ
thumbprint
on the darknessâ
NOTES
The poems in this collection first appeared in the following publications:
CALYX: âElegy in the Form of Steamâ (as âTea Kettleâ)
Copper Nickel: âAmaryllisâ
Crab Creek Review: âOde to Dark Matter,â âLithiumâ
Isthmus: âNewtonâs Appleâ
Laurel Review: âElectron Cloud,â âOrionid Meteor,â âElegy in the Form of Porcelainâ
Pacific Northwest Inlander: âElegy in the Form of a Pomegranateâ (as âOde to a Pomegranateâ)
Permafrost: âMetamorphosisâ
Poetry Northwest: âElegy in the Form of an Octopusâ (as âOde to Chromatophores, Ode to an Octopusâ)
Portland Review: âImpossible Things,â âHow to Eat a Pomegranateâ
Potomac Review: âMaybeâ
Rock & Sling: âEve Splits the Apple,â âPrismâ
Sierra Nevada Review: âBroaden the Subjectâ
TAYO: âLaw of the Conservation of Mass,â âMetaphors of Mass Destructionâ
Willow Springs: âNeurosurgeryâ (as âNeurosurgery Sonataâ)
âElectron Cloud,â âEve Splits the Apple,â and âNeurosurgeryâ have been nominated for the 2020 Pushcart Prize by Laurel Review, Rock & Sling, and Willow Springs.
âPsalm of the Israeli Grenadeâ quotes the Book of Deuteronomy: âMay we be head not tail,â often used as a blessing for Rosh Hashanah. The final
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