From What Is Left Behind

Cynthia Morgan, "The Tune Changed Much Too Slowly for Her,"
Installation, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois

Where people lived no longer
a house blossomed in remoteness
walled on three sides
face open to the world.

As winter closed
the northern yard sang with budding limbs
and a ballet of mosquito hawks.
New roots periscoped
through moss flagstone and agate.
From there we saw

beneath the ceiling
a dress billowing    bodiless
rotating as if it hung from a planet
anchored not by physics
but memory
with crickets stitched in its seams.

On the oak mantel
a family in photographs pitched in vines.
Near French doors
a pair of boots fused to the splintered floor.
Green bottles veiled in web
stacked in the cellar
the wine returned to vapor.
Facing the drowning sun
a picture window painted by sea snails
arranged in the notes of a hymn.

Home sick home
mortised by tenons of teeth.
Home sick home
where crying only escaped
if it was quicker than light.

 

 

Poems by John Waldman: