Thursday, March 30
[ALL THINGS NOW REMIND ME]
All things now remind me of what love used to be. Swollen cattails in lonely
places. Gluey conditioner in my hair. Firm books. Their variegated spines.
Swirl of words like a stirred cocktail, whirled umbilicus, pulsing asterisk.
The past is this: to have been young and desirous and to be those things
no more. In the future the cattails will explode without me. I pray they will
not go unseen. Who will ride the cemetery horses? Incorrigible blond forelocks
blowing in their eyes. Back when I walked through cemeteries commenting
on the strange names. The present tense: to take a loveless path is to court
a purple-blue emptiness, like a disco or a grotto. Or the cave where dead bodies
are stored in the winter, when a shovel can’t break through frozen ground.
I have seen such spaces. I have been alone in them. Sound of water lapping.
Animals calling to each other. Echo of my own breath. Smoke pouring
from my mouth in the cold. Memory, interloper in the corner who means to kill,
heavy rock in its hand. And poetry. This poem right now. This one-night stand.
(Diane Seuss)