For the boy child sitting in the front row at the book fair
The flower is lonely
look how it weeps
look how the stone edge
precipice of the tips
of the tears form an iceberg
It’s tired of the night
its polarities
its dimensions
its ghosts
The flower finds the day empty
and filled with longing
solitude
the interloper, regret
the people are as depressing
as rain and winter light
The time to have children is over
I eat bread and cheese
for one
The light dims
Another night is over
And I am left to think
of our separation
the much younger
(than I am now)
woman in your life
I think of how fragile
the word “ceasefire” is
“novelist”
and I come up for air
reach for memory
and all of its tenderness
What remains is this
a sickly father
the traits of manic depression
hope
Yes, hope
all of its blessed assurance
I find faith in a clock
The spaghetti of time
The years
turn into mist
while I listen
to a poem by Akhmatova
I am not the only woman
who has felt alone
who has been rejected by a man
and became a poet
instead of a mother.
—–
I am now married to God; I wanted you to know that
In the cottage of abandonment
I wait for you to come back to me
All I receive in return is a kind of
invitation to your bloodless refusal
For the wound in me
do you see the high frequency, the red
emergency vibrations
the labels hanging from the branches
do you see the heinous knots of grief
The museum in your eyes are now closed
Completely indifferent to me
You have turned into a chameleon
champion of the atlas and family tribe
So proud of your salty and sparkly teeth
biting into Fatima Sydow’s chicken
Google will use its focus of attention
To all the dark clouds in the world
there’s many of me to be found
wizard or wizened or wintry branch
the tears do not come for you anymore
do you not see the ripened fruit on the
dining room table, the light falling into
the darkness, into my hurt, my wound
my broken heart, hardship, struggle
the butter-rich mango
the melon sweet, the dripping pear
the fuse in me
It is dead now, quite, quite dead
Quiet and numb
I gave the young man soap and toothpaste
I gave him coffee and bread
I gave another young man water
In their eyes I look for your eyes
In their souls I see your bitterness
the unfairness of life and some days
it is just too much for me
The fact that you abandoned me for
another life, another city
another woman, a life in Cambodia.
—–
Poetry © Abigail George
Image: insspirito via Pixabay remixed