poetry thursday
but at first, a disclaimer:

i'm back as bee. *pixie* didn't fit - it is a side of me, but it didn't feel as comfortable as bee does. i find that once i've trod certain ground, it's difficult to return - in this instance, difficult to return to the shores of anonymity. i like being bee; it's not my real name, but it is definitely the nickname that i gave myself, years ago. *pixie*, like the move to the porch, was a bit of a forced hat.

as well, i have changed the template, (obviously), which is why the links are down, and everything is sort of under construction, for the time being. i promise, i'll update as soon as i can figure out the code.

for poetry thursday i wanted to return to a similar, instinctive love of mine.
i woke up with sexton on the brain.
i found her late in the game, in terms of poets, only truly last year - and since then have wanted to voraciously devour every single word she's ever written, soak them in milk like bread, wear them as pendants in my ears, spangle them across my room. i want to fill the bathtub with her poems and lie among them until my skin gives off the scent of her.

i found this poem a while ago, and it is one of my favourite poems by one of my favourite authors. i love this poem so viscerally - it is so sad, so yearning, so beautiful, so uplifting - that i would want the entire world to experience it, if it were possible.

That Day
This is the desk I sit at
and this is the desk where I love you too much
and this is the typewriter that sits before me
where yesterday only your body sat before me
with its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus,
with its tongue like a king making up rules as he goes,
with its tongue quite openly like a cat lapping milk,
with its tongue-both of us coiled in its slippery life.
That was yesterday, that day.

That was the day of your tongue,
your tongue that came from your lips,
two openers, half animals, half birds
caught in the doorway of your heart.
That was the day I followed the king's rules,
passing by your red veins and your blue veins,
my hands down the backbone, down quick like a firepole,
hands between legs where you display your inner knowledge,
where diamond mines are buried and come forth to bury,
come forth more sudden than some reconstructed city.
It is complete within seconds, that monument.
The blood runs underground yet brings forth a tower.
A multitude should gather for such an edifice.
For a miracle one stands in line and throws confetti.
Surely the Press is here looking for headlines.
Surely someone should carry a banner on the sidewalk.
If a bridge is constructed doesn't the mayor cut a ribbon?
If a phenomenon arrives shouldn't the Magi come bearing gifts?
Yesterday was the day I bore gifts for your gift
and came from the valley to meet you on the pavement.
That was yesterday, that day.

That was the day of your face,
your face after love, close to the pillow, a lullaby.
Half asleep beside me letting the old fashioned rocker stop,
our breath became one, became a child-breath together,
while my fingers drew little o's on your shut eyes,
while my fingers drew little smiles on your mouth,
while I drew I LOVE YOU on your chest and its drummer
and whispered, "Wake up!" and you mumbled in your sleep,
"Sh. We're driving to Cape Cod. We're heading for the Bourne
Bridge. We're circling around the Borne Circle." Bourne!
Then I knew you in your dream and prayed of our time
that I would be pierced and you would take root in me
and that I might bring forth your born, might bear
the you or the ghost of you in my little household.
Yesterday I did not want to be borrowed
but this is the typewriter that sits before me
and love is where yesterday is at.

for more poetry thursday, go here