Resistance of the Heart Against Business As Usual

Fur folding, belly resting on the cool spike of dew the warm bite of dust I am still. The day moves in and out of me The sun beats down on lowly towers where prisoners learn to cry and moan grappling with the weight of cool stone. My joy comes as a rush of torrent spring - how the river moves through the white canyon, the carved pelvis of bone, the spiral conch, the snail at work in every day.

In the smallest corner of the world A mountain draws up its knees And makes room for crystal waters and soot pines, melody rocks and grass snake burrows. There, doe mother raises her velvet head Eyeing warily the cusp of the trees She sees them whisper and thin, then finally give over To the pad of a footfall; a pilgrim’s soft step. Returning to a land she had almost forgotten: the babe of the bottomlands Arrives home at last. Grandfather Garter slithers up to her Wraps himself gently, like a jewel at her throat “You know what they’ll say when they see us together.” And he wheezes like a twig at his own clever joke. She cracks a smile like a buckey shining, And the bullfrog of her belly grows round with a laugh, “They’ve been singing that song since the very Beginning.” Grandfather sighs and blinks his eyes; she was home at last. Sinking her feet into the mud of the hollow Her gaze touches on old precious things The laurel, the hemlock, and poplars still quivering They share the sun quietly, like a still cup of tea “My darling, you’re silent...” Grandfather garter touches his nose to her cheek, “The bottomlands hold you.  They will hold what you speak.” She sighs and lifts her eyes, and the babe begins to sing: “Through great cities I wandered I was a woman for a while Men would carve me from obsidian Then ask me why I could not smile. In their gardens I labored But the dew would turn to rust When the word for love is iron chain All men will turn to lust. What do you do when your path is at stake When the gentleman rake sings his song Where will you go when you’ve never been told What’s a woman, when a woman’s alone? Hung like curtains, I lingered I heard howling in the hush In the solitude of exile There’s no wildness they can trust I spent all my seasons I held no coin to collect more I could hear the call of ancestors As twilight shook their bones The heart grows with time, one is yours one is mine So why am I lashed to your wheel? And why let me go when you’ve never been told What’s a woman, when a woman’s alone? In my palace I trembled, I resigned myself to die Like the woman of this country: A bitter laugh behind the eye - ” Suspended in knowing the story’s cold ending She pauses the song, her voice failing in spite of the bottomlands beckon, the room for remembering, the babe sits in silence, letting day becomes night. Grandfather Garter tucks himself snugly under her chin “My darling, your footfall arrived just this morning... With all that you carry, in this place you’ll begin.”

Late in November One of the last warm days hurries in with its sleeves rolled up to do the final work of plucking brown leaves from trees and tossing handfuls into the air. They are spun to gold flecks by the sun, And swarm like kingly birds, flocking between the proud V of the mountain peaks. The last warm day tucks ginseng up her coat sleeves Wraps a lump of coal in an old napkin and steals away up-holler, crying: “Everything that was good is now gone!” The wind blows hard over Troublesome Creek And whips the birds to fury.

At night, I light a lantern in the window. My pajamas I strip at the foot of the bed And dive into the flickering pool. I am swimming naked through honey and striped onyx Baptizing the sins of the day The voices in the air conditioner start their babbling again Policemen and aunts and possibly the town crook But I dive deeper Past the neighbors’ eyes - Until I am submerged alone in a cave of dancing gold Reminding my body how old I am And how young And how wonderfully terrible it is to be both Like a tiger caught by her toe Still not quite sure what is holding her back.

I wonder if I will ever feel as free As Reggie Timmons in the back of his brother’s pick up truck. I have never seen a king with more authority Or a prince with more good looks. With one hand steadying his momma’s old dresser, his legs so far beneath him he looks near six feet tall.   He's got mileage in his eyes, More open space than between a dumb girl’s legs. “Elise, Elise - ” My little sister.  She is in the fourth grade. “Reggie Timmon’s ridin in the back of a pickup truck with no seatbelt on -” “Shut up,” I say.  “I like him that way.”

Last night, I dreamt of my first child Soft as dough, she was exquisite All day, the weight of her mouth on my breast - Whose memory was this, grandmother? I was wide like dunes against the ocean Secret rounded bays into which the coast longs to curve My elbows could have reached around you all A rocking chair Holding the warm cotton folds of my mother  Intensely freckled, with her hair short Before I knew what it meant to be separate from her body, I pressed against it We are wide, long, stable My hips are a dining room table. My daughter is passed like communion bread, She is held by many hands. The day steps in and out of me - I barely move. There is nowhere to go because I have been there before and I am already there I am both forward and back,  Great great great grandmother Empress of still branches in the evening air Your memory has become my imagination I do not know fear because I have felt the breadth of love I have arrived at the center of the table It is set with a bowl, and milk a soft cry.

I want to give beauty and blood Nothing quaint - no teacup, no tire swing But the great baying of birth. I want cheap poetry, from the lip of your glass I want it to open like a fist in your aorta. Ventricles gaping, I set fire to the raw edge of the forest. I want to bare my breasts and un-contain myself Walking idly through the pines Carrying blood between my thighs Do you see now what makes me? I am the doe, soft mother I am the boar, guiltless sow I am the hilltops satisfied to bare a child of root and stone and earth’s black gore. I am whole handed and I am double hearted Unabashed by the fear in their spines I am the mare’s baying The blood of the pines.

The lesbian couple upstairs Have a new plant in the window. On either side of it they are sitting Communing over dinner. The moon, Quartered by a knife and fork, Hangs over their heads Bowed to the plates, White like the moon, Round like the plates. And the bar on the first floor, The local spot, Rises up up up Yellow stars in all the windows To meet them.

Under the orange tree there is a house to which I do not belong. It has grown thick with dust and cobwebs And I weep For it solitude is like my own, Incomplete.   In its hallways I am a caterpillar Spinning home after threaded home And from each I will emerge Dusted, sleek, wobbling. Like the flowering vine that will root up foundations, Shouting: “My sisters!  My sisters!   Have you ever seen a place so new?”