Poetry
by
George Manner
Black Bird Trick
". . . and later, that night, there was
a vulture sitting in the washbasin?"
--- Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano
Apparently my back has jammed the bathroom door shut.
Okay, so I can't get up and it's hard to focus--
the loam-blackness of the bird spreads the color of halitosis
across our bald bulb. I vomit to survive, to be left alone
to dream away the vulture on his cold porcelain perch.
He watches me
and watches the me reflected in that full-length mirror: animals
can afford not to have stereoscopic vision. Who let him in,
who placed him here? On the other side of this door
you are sleeping, whoever you are, you with whom I've lived
these thirteen no o'clock years. I know I know you
but your image diminishes with each blink of my eyes.
If I tap my nails hard enough against this tile it hurts.
Once, even my mother was healthy. I was. Things are growing in
parabolas away from me and I will not call for help.
Snug in here.
Hell, this bird's my friend, he doesn't expect anything.
Soon I'll sleep. In white, black sun.
Blue
To be, what?, six or seven and approaching
your mother's seersucker wrap-around skirt
in the absolute quiet of your concentration
over a question that has just nudged you away
from play (Why is the sky blue?); to reach her
and tug; to look up into her blue eyes and ask;
to get no answer but, at the same time, to know
you are loved. To have your son and daughter
come up behind you and tug; to turn and look
down into their eyes as they ask you why
you look so blue; to kneel on one knee and gather
them in your arms, holding them so close they
can't see you; to feed them some nonsense that,
because they are wise, they accept; to have them
turn away, walk away, convinced that you
love them. To have your father, old now,
look up from his hospital bed, searching
your brown eyes for the light blue lines
of his long-dead wife's seersucker skirt;
to tell him the only thing you can
by turning away.
[CONTENTS] [MASTHEAD] [CONTRIBUTORS' NOTES]
Copyright (C) 1995 The Silence: A Literary Journal
and the author. All rights reserved.