Archive of New Mexico Poetry – Michelle Holland
After Marianne Moore’s “O to be a Dragon”
O to be briefly a mountain
to pass my hand across the lamp
and wish
know the mountain I become
can be unwished
feel the cragginess and persistent pines break through the rock fissures
and swallow the rains
that poured arroyos into my sides
spreading me out to meet all the flatland below
then count myself back by ten
slowly, each number a reason
of clambering goats, hooves tapping
and lichen stubborn across a rock path
each deep color of ravine and waterfall
a number back to zero
and I will be no mountain, again
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Under my eyes the sharp of my cheek and hollow below Belie that I
have had no appetite of late. The mornings come early and nervous,
my shower does not wash down the edge of the day that begins in my
throat like the butt of a joke.
November again. I bend to grab the soap
and notice the bruises on my shin.
The burn on my hand is almost a scar,
a reminder of my carelessness.
That knot in my gut takes up space,
a small rodent in search of hibernation
snoring and gnawing while it stays warm and snug at my expense.
There are too many residents along my shin, between my toes, weighing
me down when I walk, making my shoulders slump and my ears ring with
their presence.
The marigolds outside shed yellow and orange in the bright cold light
of our backyard autumn. It is the days of the dead. The preying
mantis lives among the blooming cosmos. He clings like the dead to
the cool dew of the mornings, his skinny legs prickly enough to send
shivers when I reach out bravely, allow him to climb up my arm and
tip his triangle head toward my eyes.
Those dead are heavy. They take up the hollows behind my knees, and
ride into the mesquite and creosote desert with me. The footfalls of
my horse keep time with their heavy breathing. It’s the light, I
swear, that holds them ever between where I am going and where I
began.
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We line up our losses like pretty tin ducks, noisy metal to metal as
they go nose to rump across our line of vision.
Take aim. The air
is smoldering cordite of color and noise gone. The shaky floor and
wavy mirrors beckon.
We see lovely wooden boxes,
with dove-tail joints and marquetry
to hold a lock of hair, a worn ballet shoe, a silly photo with
someone holding a big trout. The bodies are gone by now,
folded under collapsed wood, mulch for roses. Our voices rise over
the creak of the Ferris Wheel.
We insist. Dress the dead as long as we live. The stories catch in our throats.
Our hands clench to create
white clean sheets again,
the leather laces of old shoes,
gathered evenings up until
that clear resounding image of hollowed cheeks, pallor, breathing for
the last few minutes while the barker hawks the entry fee,
his sailor’s cap listing over one eye,
pointing to the bearded lady,
the two-headed calf.
We hang on, determined
to ignore the lurid sky, the closing storm over the grease and lights
of our carnival, work to stable the floor under us.
The mirrors warp our attempt.
Our eyes follow the ducks lined up,
our ears accept the tinny music.
We point to the pretty pink bows,
a lock of hair, the gilded frames of color photos.
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These boys suffer daily,
our aim is careless.
We do not shoot to kill.
In fact, we mean no harm.
Our pushy, soft white hands are out,
as if they see this as a gesture
of kindness.
Trust me, our eyes reach.
We are lying. Lying.
No painless death
or quiet, proud, respectable
passing at our hands.
The boys limp
on their one good leg,
the other shot to shit.
They continue to wake
in the morning with their healing wounds of the day before,
steel themselves for another round of random shot, and we wonder why
these children are so cruel, why they burn the whiskers off found
rabbits, why they spout fighting words.
I can never, never fill their fear
with the open eyes of hope.
Hope is a myth that has abandoned them
with their eyes shut tight
against any light that I can cast.
What tradition,
what bear claw chant,
or our lady of anywhere
comes when the sky cracks open
above our classroom
and the avalanche begins?
The floor is shaking
and the spirit world has abandoned
this simple corner of the universe.
The pits of our stomach rule.
The red pulse of always, always failing, always, always doing everything wrong
overwhelms any other rhythm.
The grounding fear of not understanding
and their screams of need
create the four cement block walls around us.
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About the Poet
Michelle Holland’s poems and essays have appeared in such literary journals as Puerto Del Sol, The Tuscon Poet, Long Shot, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Journal of New Jersey Poets, online in Feminista and Red River Review, and anthologized in Written with a Spoon: A Poet’s Cookbook, 1996; The Practice of Peace, 1998 (Sherman Asher Publishing), and Voces Fronteriza, 1996-97 (El Paso Public Library). Palanquin Press of the University of South Carolina published a poetry collection, Love in the Real World, November 1999. Michelle teaches creative writing and communication skills at Oñate High School in Las Cruces.
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