Today's Poem (After Violeta Garcia-Medoza)

As if haunted by the worst fear,
you open doors and doors,
sinking into the deep house, its calm
featureless hallways, seeking
the perfect empty room.

You are fleeing from the rustling
bright mothwinged creature
at your back.

Despite your skin
electric with alarm,
I regret to inform you
the wings are attached.

It is true that joy is a way of being lost
in the open. It is a monster
to the carefully cached heart.

Yet here is the sky still,
burning open all the eyes of the house:
one too many doors
and it is yours.


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I got Mendoza's poem "Harbinger" as a prompt in my inbox today (see next post!). Her poem made me think about my own dreams of exploring houses and interior spaces. These are joyful dreams, not like in this poem. But they also maybe are about turning to the interior when the exterior seems fearful.

Possibly this poem is a little too sentimental, but it is hard for me to claim joy. I could use all the help I can get.

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Poem post: Harbinger, by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza

Harbinger
Violeta Garcia-Mendoza

What does it mean that I’ve been dreaming
about sunlight moving through old houses

again? Vine-shadow on wood floors, endless
rooms, the sound of wingbeats without birds.

Pittsburgh wisdom says you need a week in Florida
when you can’t get out of bed. I up or down

my dose of antidepressants when the clocks change.
In the dreams, I wear a white dress, dust dragged

along its hem. The houses are dis-inhabited
but I know I've lived in some version of them.

In real life I try to leave the past empty, open;
a good mother haunts her life only in forward motion.

When the nerves at my right hip shriek down my leg,
I know it means my body needs to stretch.

I should exercise, drink more water, rest—
but I get through winter reading Gothic horror;

I trust myself with only so much selfishness.
In this city, potholes become a sign of character

as much as of neglect. I remind my children all is still well
when the bridges sway. In traffic, we count turkey vultures

circling in the steel gray and call it soaring.

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This poem came as a prompt in my inbox, and I liked it. The language is quiet; I keep feeling that it might drift towards prose, and then the images will arrest that: "I wear a white dress, dust dragged / along its hem."

I like the play of line breaks: "I up or down / my antidepressants."

I felt this: "I should exercise, drink more water, rest— / but I get through winter reading Gothic horror," only I think if I took up more Gothic horror it would probably improve my winters remarkably.

What do you hear here?

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