Sometimes she wakes to war
thinking flares of thunder, echoes of lightning,
a grand thunderstorm rattling her windows,
a hurricane, wind swept and damp with sand
violent like the breaking of oyster shells under foot,
an earthquake and the wrinkling of mortar,
collision of brick, the heavy breathing of a survivor.
Then she remembers who she is.Sometimes her hair became a nest of mosquitoes
and fluid from her eyes semen. Her lips were exactly
imperfect. When her eyes were green, she rubbed her left earlobe.
When they were brown, she curled her hands in her lap.
Sometimes the battle would go on for more than a week.
Other times it ended as quickly as a jet flying overhead.
She learned how to eat weeds and sauerkraut,
soup from edible leaves hanging on trees.
Thunder rolled in thick bolts of light,
hurricanes flung glass and bits of bark,
earthquakes went on and on, the sidewalks and street
slow motion partners in dance.
Sometimes she would sit up in bed
pause before thinking and remember why she was.
It never mattered who or what or how.
Sometimes the act of waking was the only thing she needed.
| Copyright © 2021 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
Oh, Michael, gloriously stunning (stunningly glorious?)! Again the open “she,” inviting us readers to thrash about, reach out, create, try to apply the sharp, bright, palpable images your sturdy poem hands us: thunder, lightning, windows rattling, walking on oyster shells….
ReplyDeleteOf course, we have been prompted by your generous disclosure of a recent comment to suppose that “she” might be your daughter, which redoubles our delight – mine anyway – at your describing her moods (?), her eyes sometimes showing green, sometimes brown.
Thank you, thank you, for bestowing us this!
I remembered after writing the comment above that you disclosed a fair amount about your poetry writing in our interview (of 25 months ago!), and I invite our readers to go read it, even if they read it in September 2019. I myself much enjoyed the re-reading: your early teaching life in and around Chicago, a long excerpt from your “teaching book,” how you met Bob Boldt, your first poem published, and more. Go here to read the interview.
DeleteReaders: be particularly alert when you read the interview’s concluding words:
DeleteYou keep busy doing good.
Thanks for the great questions. Tell you what: if your readers have more questions and/or comments, please ask them to post them in the comment section and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.
Michael, I thought I was just being playful and clever leading off with those fantasy Wikipedia questions, but it’s clear that there o u g h t to be a Wikipedia entry for you! But whoever takes the assignment already has a lot of information for it right here. There are quite a few more journals to consult (and cite), though, than the over-50 I was already aware of. And a long list to compile for your bibliography. Volunteers may contact me.
I hereby renew my call for volunteers to work on Michael H. Brownstein’s Wikipedia entry….
This poem is one of my favorites. That said, thank you for your most complimentary comments. After fixing a broken furnace--don't even know exactly what I did--and then fixing a water heater--I did know what I did--and not counting repairing a fence, doing structural work on an old warehouse we are rehabbing, well, Morris, your comments made my day--nope, make that my month--much, much better.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Michael, your arduous days and months (and years) of service to others deserve being made!
DeleteI constantly wonder how you can be so opaque and so suggestive, so evocative, at the same time. "It never mattered who or what or how." Interestingly, the same is true of this poem.
ReplyDeleteRoger,
ReplyDeleteThanks again for your insight into my writing. I really appreciate it.
Michael