Poem post: Harbinger, by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza

[radiantfracture]

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.

+ + + + + +

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?

§rf§

Comments

[cmcmck]

I love that last line!

'In real life I try to leave the past empty, open;'

And you know why I like this!

[sovay]

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

I find this fragment of snowbird advice poignant, since what with snow disappearing and Florida becoming a hellscape, the tradition is much less common than it was.

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

reminds me of Jessica Winter's "Sad Music (2020): "I'll make it through by listening to / sad music."

[sabotabby]

I'm having a strange synchronicity where I'm discussing CanLit as Gothic on one server while reading this.

[smokingboot]

Vine-shadow on wood floors, endless
rooms, the sound of wingbeats without birds.
{...]
The houses are dis-inhabited
but I know I've lived in some version of them.

I know these rooms.

[radiantfracture]

IS IT THE VULTURES

[radiantfracture]

Nice! As in haunted by colonialism?

[sabotabby]

Yes. And also that sense of physical isolation.