Consumed
I was four when I began devouring you:
I started with your knees,
crying in the night to be soothed
so I might cling, and complain of the ache.
I held the unnamed thing;
the heaviness of the molested child
you swung from your breast like an
unsheathed heart with its language perplexed
to a fear of doctors. It smelled of
beer, and waiting sheets
baby-powdered for my rest.
Next I took the wit of your rage,
wrapped it curiously, stole to corners
to look at it. I buried it in paper,
afraid to throw anything away, and afraid to eat it;
likewise, I had no savagery
for the blind-eyed rabbit from my Easter basket gazing
with its frozen stare. I ate the ears, instead.
I peeled large rinds from your loneliness
but never could get underneath into
the waiting fill of air where your lung
heaved like a sedated animal anticipating
another blow–it wouldn't shift away, only prepared;
I swallowed the waiting hard, like a hatching egg
whose edges furrowed my throat
with a repeating bitterness.
And for six years I counted out your cells,
the inventory complete–this one gave birth to that,
and so on, and yes, I took those then like pills
and I relished the strands of your hair as they fell,
like an orphan. Cancer is the glass of water
through which you appear shattered and separated,
and you can finally see your happiness is over there;
you are bent like a straw, cut sensibly,
and the distorted perception nods–finally.
We have grieved to know the loss of love
replacing anticipation,
the Monday shadow of interrogation–every step asking.
If you could draw back to see the face of God
you'd see the arrow-like formation of the A,
every Y of a tree, the complexion of clouds which passed
the day some stranger killed your dog
and a dimple in the ground where you fell, looking for answers.
When I find a mirror and dig
for the cannibal I may see the roving eye
of a mother, or a sugared confection of different
colors, or a tear glinting on a pitiless face I've never glimpsed;
or maybe just a mouth,
something that is a mouth and
without blame, with a shining light
reflecting on it dumbly.
Natalie Easton is a free-verse poet whose tools of choice are an old typewriter and a kerosene lamp. She believes poetry should be written the hard way: honestly. She is @poetnatalie on twitter.
I was four when I began devouring you:
I started with your knees,
crying in the night to be soothed
so I might cling, and complain of the ache.
I held the unnamed thing;
the heaviness of the molested child
you swung from your breast like an
unsheathed heart with its language perplexed
to a fear of doctors. It smelled of
beer, and waiting sheets
baby-powdered for my rest.
Next I took the wit of your rage,
wrapped it curiously, stole to corners
to look at it. I buried it in paper,
afraid to throw anything away, and afraid to eat it;
likewise, I had no savagery
for the blind-eyed rabbit from my Easter basket gazing
with its frozen stare. I ate the ears, instead.
I peeled large rinds from your loneliness
but never could get underneath into
the waiting fill of air where your lung
heaved like a sedated animal anticipating
another blow–it wouldn't shift away, only prepared;
I swallowed the waiting hard, like a hatching egg
whose edges furrowed my throat
with a repeating bitterness.
And for six years I counted out your cells,
the inventory complete–this one gave birth to that,
and so on, and yes, I took those then like pills
and I relished the strands of your hair as they fell,
like an orphan. Cancer is the glass of water
through which you appear shattered and separated,
and you can finally see your happiness is over there;
you are bent like a straw, cut sensibly,
and the distorted perception nods–finally.
We have grieved to know the loss of love
replacing anticipation,
the Monday shadow of interrogation–every step asking.
If you could draw back to see the face of God
you'd see the arrow-like formation of the A,
every Y of a tree, the complexion of clouds which passed
the day some stranger killed your dog
and a dimple in the ground where you fell, looking for answers.
When I find a mirror and dig
for the cannibal I may see the roving eye
of a mother, or a sugared confection of different
colors, or a tear glinting on a pitiless face I've never glimpsed;
or maybe just a mouth,
something that is a mouth and
without blame, with a shining light
reflecting on it dumbly.
Natalie Easton is a free-verse poet whose tools of choice are an old typewriter and a kerosene lamp. She believes poetry should be written the hard way: honestly. She is @poetnatalie on twitter.
