Home Page | Links: American Women Poets and Long Poems | In Love With The Angel | Stream of  Fire  | The Year Of This Snapshot | Death While Traveling | Third Moment | Interactions

Looking At Survival In the Mirror

I.

Looking at survival in the mirror:

it rides, it does not regard, me.

What I have not yet done

is coming after me, what I

have not become swells from

within:  all that I still

am is pressed to transparency

between.  Looking at survival

in the mirror (my eyes have not

permission not to attend)

after all it was not

what we were taught to want;

after all it was

not optional; we teach

wrong if we speak of deserving.

II.

        Strength in sprinter's

    bursts, pour into the solitary

        runner.  She will

collapse in a moment; she is hoping

            for shelter

        to appear by the side

    of her road - everything looks

        like shelter.  In a minute

she will have run far enough

            to allow

        herself to feel

    her pain.  Once the congratulatory

        glances outnumber

the measuring looks, she may graciously

            accede.

        Give it its name:

    if anyone will run beside

        her with a bottle

of water, offering a swallow, that is

            shelter.

        A sign proclaiming

    the halfway mark is shelter;

        her eyes take

shelter, but her legs move.  Raise her a

            cheer,

        only a few

    attempt to run this track;

        if she reaches tape,

every year of her depletion will be called

            triumph.

III.

Don't speak to her, silence.

She's greedy and old, she

won't need words for those.

Keep dumb, silence, about

history.  Some vanished.

The rustle of travel lulls.

The restless woman who loves

to get sentiment's way,

the plaintive one, will drown

your voice in the failures named

rejoicing, achievement:  struggle's

noisy marches and grabs.

                                              Continue   Death While Traveling

Email:  [email protected]