HEADING EAST ON I-84
Do you think of it too, dressing our mother’s body,
you and I pulling on her socks
and black slacks, slipping the floral top
over her head, angling her arms inside the sleeves,
clasping on a necklace, black flats for her feet,
you and I swirling clockwise
and counterclockwise around the bed,
like these streams of fog drifting around the car?
Now I’m passing a chain-link fence topped
with coils of barbed wire, and caught
in the coils, cotton and paper like shredded wind.
Is it this way for you too, a feeling close to the skin,
everything you thought you knew?
Shiny semi in the next lane. Flatbed truck
hauling a load of wooden pallets. Things
pushing their way in, while you try to work out
something that feels so distant,
like these transmission towers in their brittle dresses,
rising like stars, holding up
high tension wires ticking with electricity,
their arms must be so cold,
insulated like that.
SMALL SHAPE OF THE FUTURE
for Macy
Sweet radish. Little milkshake—I hope you are well
and growing with hints of raspberry and pine. Let me tell you
about the hummingbird I saw yesterday in the middle
of a giant fuchsia. Such a tiny green bird, wings beating
so fast they were a blur. Dipping its beak into flower
after flower, making each one twirl like a purple and pink
ballerina. Little rib kicker. Little heartburn, your mother’s
blood and salt. Out here, it’s possible to feel cold. I’m saying
some days are hard. Some days I forget to laugh.
Little blink. Little eggshell. There are grape hyacinths
to pick and parades to see, picture books to read until
we float like bubbles, but I can’t help thinking
about our hearts—shaped in darkness, arriving
with a sadness that turns us to fragments, like notes
cut loose from their songs. Don’t worry. I promise
you will love the azalea right now. So many
blossoms it’s turning the world red, so beautiful
it’s hard to remain one person. Little gravity. Little sip.
We’ll throw on some music, make a house piece by piece,
you and me at the table with graham crackers
and frosting and bowls of bright candy.
Eileen Pettycrew lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in CALYX, Slipstream (forthcoming), Watershed Review, South 85 Journal, Gold Man Review, VoiceCatcher, The Scream Online Dreams Anthology, and others.
The line “it’s hard to remain one person” is adapted from a line from the poem “Ars Poetica?” by Czeslaw Milosz: “how difficult it is to remain just one person.”
Photo by Peter Drach (aka PeteDragomir) on Foter.com / CC BY