End of the Bleeding

Who knew I'd feel this desperate
To hold on to the bleeding?

To realize I can trade in maxi for mini,
And I insist on the industrial-size.

A few more drops of liquid life,
And you're gone, little one,
Gone,
Along with all that housed you.

My uterus is an empty rented house,
Scrubbed clean,
Waiting for the next inhabitant.

Death of the Firstborn

This Birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. — T.S. Eliot

They all look quite like you at that age,
      and dead like nothing at all,
      a clot of purple-gray, sticky and wrapped with strong, black ribbons.

Feeling you leave in a gush of pain and red,
      in the blackest and loneliest part of the night,
was a hard & bitter agony,
      like giving birth,
giving birth to death.

Why were we led all that way, and never to see your face?
How could I do this again?
Death of the firstborn,
      and God spares no one,
      because why should we be passed over?

Grandma

There's no Candy Land in heaven, don't worry,
      but there are donuts.
Glistening round and lightest brown
      with cracking sugar glaze,
Made by a little old granny
      in pink tennis shoes.
No, but that's not right —
      they were neutral and sturdy,
Nurse's shoes, your only shoes,
      and you were regular-size. Grandma-size.
With long gray hair wound in a bun,
      like dough ropes twined into shape,
Then white hair curled in a perm,
      sugar glazing, tight as donuts on a dowel.

I learned more about you in your obituary
      than what ever left your lips.
But maybe it did, so maybe I mean
      than what ever reached my ears.
I had small ears then,
      and they could take only so much.
So what they took was your gentle interest in my life,
      an easy introduction to yours.
The best way to keep apples from browning,
      the best sugar-water to attract hummingbirds.
The best way to stand so still and feed deer,
      and the electric way to keep them out of your garden.
And you read my favorite stories and played my boring games,
      and you let me dance among your ballerina fuchsias
And you let me pet the soft leaves of your African violets,
      and you cut open your aloe when I,
Clumsy as you were graceful,
      burned myself in your kitchen.

You were only Grandma to me,
      my world beginning and ending when I did,
And though I know what I knew was good,
      I know there was more than that.

That's why I suppose there's no Candy Land in heaven.
      But there must be a kitchen there,
And you can make donuts — when you wish —
      and lure us with sensual chocolate chip cookies
And tease our tongues with savory peanuty balls
      with crisp chocolate coating, bittersweet between teeth.
And you'll tell us your stories, all that makes you you,
      And we will eat it all up,
Licking sugar off of our lips.

Unwilling

A 50-year-old shouldn't die,
and if he can go, so can I,
      and so can you.
And I can do nothing but grieve in advance
and pull you back, grasping,
tearing your shirt on the way to the altar.

Can I be Abraham and not expect the ram?
Can I raise my knife and plunge,
not expecting a halting hand?
Plunge into my love, into my heart,
into my dearest joys.
Plunge into the beating heart of my man,
the beating heart of my son,
the beating heart of my dreams,
      plunge into me.
Can I allow lifeblood to pour
without hope of heaven or tourniquet?

But how can I restrain the flow of the tide?
How can I grasp the water of life?
Even clenched fists leak,
the water silently seeping
without our seeing
and when we open our hands to pour,
      it is gone.
Damp palms, cramped knuckles,
glistening with our loss.

Within the Wolf

Visiting grandchildren are
nothing but bad. This day
started with a wolf attack.

Squeaky demands dimmed
by the walls of muscle
and skin, by the humming of
blood through veins.
His voice rumbles in my
pressed-close ears, a father's
low and reassuring.

It's better to hear him than to see him,
much better.

So much waiting,
like the ticking of a clock,
the growling of a stomach,
and I don't know whether it's mine
or his.

The gentle squeezing of the womb,
the reassuring beating of a constant heart,
until the violence stops it.

They pull me out of my rolled position,
a girl's shaking hand
and a strong man's forceps grip.

A hunter, with red paws
and satisfied grin.

And I'm out, reborn
at the end of my life.

Sticky with birthing fluid,
I'm naked, and the air
around me chills.

Misrouted

I took the wrong bus,
the slow meanderer.
Two women talked
in the seat in front.
One studied English
because she loves to read.
One mastered German
to learn to speak.
And it was the two mes
debating the paths
I could have taken.
My two selves,
my two interests and loves.

But it's not me, is it?
Because it's not
all about me.
And these are
other women,
and this is not my route,
this not my bus.
I've gotten off.

Dolce

I once heard a poem
about playing piano softly
and how that soft pedaling
defined the poet's life.
And I, in pianissimo practicing,
tucked into the living room,
not disturbing TV viewers
and novel readers,
children playing
and cats napping,
found the echoes of her poem
in my own soul,
my own narrow rejoicing.
I never asked for a copy,
so I can never hear it again,
soft strains in my memory,
an out-loud request too forte.

To Margaret

The sun picks out
a brown hair on my brown shirt
before I do,
resistant within the fibers.
If not for extraordinary length
and ringlet spring,
how could I have known it was yours?

Coated strands catalog essence,
outing the poisoned.
Your plump pods reveal
nothing so dramatic:
gray skies and evergreens,
salmon and Rainier cherries.
They say you've
never strayed, never
launched your grand tour,
Canada your farthest destination,
comfortable cities.

You can't hide, though, Margaret,
spinning, daring and shining in camouflage,
catching foreign suns.

And so on this grass
outside Southwark Cathedral,
I let this piece of you
release through my fingers,
a tendril feeler for this your journey.
It's a start—
now you've been to England.

Year of Grace

lyrics & music by Amanda Caldwell

Download the mp3
Listen online at ReverbNation.com or below (track #2)





For Percy

VERSE 1:

A clever disguise
to pretend you're no prize—
your secret's safe with me.

Your inanity
an excuse for vanity,
as English as afternoon tea.

Can I forgive your machinations,
lost in ostentation,
or surrender to disharmony?


CHORUS:

Do you hate this
inbred greatness
you can't hide,
you can't hide?

Your name a scarlet flower,
your love a fortified tower
I can't climb,
I can't climb.


VERSE 2:

Playing red rover
on the white cliffs of Dover,
but it's always yourself you send over.

My wilting contempt
my impoverished attempt
to forget what I fantasized.

Calculated disdain
just to cover up the tearstains
I can't hide,
I can't hide.


CHORUS:

Do you hate this
inbred greatness
you can't hide,
you can't hide?

Your name a scarlet flower,
your love a fortified tower
I can't climb,
I can't climb.

You must hate this
inbred greatness
you can't hide,
you can't hide.

Your name a scarlet flower,
your love a fortified tower
I can't climb,
I can't climb.


Playing red rover
on the white cliffs of Dover,
but it's never yourself you send over.

...

Send yourself over.

Official audio disclaimer/apology

Fool

lyrics & music by Amanda Caldwell

Download the mp3
Listen online at ReverbNation.com or below (track #3)





VERSE 1:

Four months apart.
It's hitting me now.
I don't want to feel
Numb anymore

A sick sense of fear,
Almost like grief,
Like something died
When you walked out the door.


CHORUS:

Well, I don't know
Where to go from here,
But I need to hear your voice.
And if you don't call soon,
I'll have to break the rules.
For you it might be worth
Being a fool.


VERSE 2:

I drive by your house.
I get to the door,
Before my courage
Leaves with me.

If I had the will
To reconcile,
Would you say I'm just
A sweet memory?


CHORUS:

Well, I don't know
Where to go from here,
But I need to hear your voice.
And if you don't call soon,
I'll have to break the rules.
For you it might be worth
Being a fool.


BRIDGE:

So many lies
But the biggest of all
Was "I don't love you anymore."


VERSE 3:

I'm going to reach out —
Nothing to lose
But my pride
And a life without you.


CHORUS:

And I don't know
Where we'll go from there,
But I know I need
to hear your voice.
If you don't call soon,
I know I'll break the rules.
For you it might be worth
Being a fool.


Official audio disclaimer/apology

Translation

A Sestina

I said no man's an island
but you didn't let me finish,
leaning over the side of the ferry
while I was left to translate
the schedules, our visit already cut
short by long lines at customs.

I don't feel at home within the customs
of New York City, so we went to Ellis Island,
but in our misreading of times we cut
it close for boarding, a photo finish.
I jot, on this boarding stub of Airtran's, late
return trips of the Liberty Island ferry.

In sepia faces, I see the burden to ferry
heart-held and sea-separated customs
to a new world, and how to translate
them for those born new on this island.
I see the names, Swedish and Finnish,
of immigrant ancestors who made the cut.

My fingers stretch to stroke the cut-
out blue and yellow woven hearts, fairy-
translucent and fading behind the smudged finish
of display cabinets. Printed cards explain customs
unknown to those raised in an island
of ignorance and apathy, no one left to translate.

I need no one to translate
your impatience. The minced cut
of your words, your gaze fixed off the island,
ready to catch the soonest ferry
and check off the next item, your customs
of touring being not to participate but to finish.

But I want to know their life from start to finish,
more than the paltry way it ran — slate
tablets with names and dates, customary
and bare facts of existence, cut
into our stone and grass and soul, a fairly
stark representation of their time in this land.

Because on that unknown island at the finish,
when Charon's ferry comes and we too are translated,
my misconceptions cut, we'll rest together in new customs.

The Name

Chewed and soft, like wet bread
Pulled-back lips in pain-wracked memory
The slide of feet to the altar
Hesitation, meditation
The hiss of a cork