EILEEN BALAND
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MAC & CHEESE
Sticky cheese pods
Tiny fat-filled urns
Overflowing with the dust
Of sharp cheddar –
Your days are numbered.
Tiny minnows
Falling helplessly
Through an esophageal tunnel
Into the dead sea of deliverance
Resurrected at break at day.
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RETURN
Giving up
and getting free
can fool you
into finding lives
that aren’t lives at all,
but endless tasks
repeated over time,
having no truth
left in them
after a few years
of owning up
to bargains.
There was a temptress
who wooed me
into salty waters
far from what I sought
to be far from.
She rocked me
on her crested lap;
I drifted off to sea and sleep
and died there on her sand,
buried beneath the fissures
her years had sliced
in rising fields.
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UP FROM PARADISE
East on Mockingbird –
The first signal lets you pass,
innocently, the way an infant
notices your footsteps
yet makes no demands.
A thousand times, you have sat
high above the heavy wheels
and watched the broken pavement
pass underneath, its surface
being slowly stripped away.
A thousand times, you have remembered,
as you drove past this lake,
your birth – your birth into a world
of working for affection that never
paused for you on its way out the door.
Brushed aside, the way the sky
is brushing off storm clouds now,
having used them up. Up the hill
to the boulevard, a speeder
interrupts the road and your thoughts.
Moments later, you can’t remember
what it was that brought you home
to this lake of unloving.
It was only a photograph
from a thousand miles away,
its promise so convincing.
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WINTER
We spend our tears in winter
From the saved mourning of previous deaths,
Over oak trees that failed to bud in March
And were fully dead by June
But whose bleak trunks remained stubbornly upright
And uncut, because the axe is broken.
We spend our tears in winter
Over vine-choked dogwoods
And the silence of cross-shaped blooms
That refuse to tell their legend.
Losses pile upon themselves like ant mounds
Spilling their sand outward in a spiral of circular growth.
We poison the ants. Rip dead trees from the ground by dead roots.
Cut grass. Pull weeds. Spray wasps. Swat flies. Wipe sweat.
So there isn’t time to mourn the vulgar death
Which daily rouses us in summer
From hearts made stiff and lazy by the violence
And hands made crueler by the experience.
No, winter is a better time for sorrow,
When we can languish in safety behind the window,
Watching the victimization of nature by its own hand,
And excusing ourselves from responsibility.
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FEBRUARY
For Sylvia Plath
The cats are restless. They pace
the crowded hallway, stopping
every so often to wash themselves free
of the specks of mud they have collected
on brief visits outside.
Inside, a thin layer of black chalk settles
on the tablecloth, the quilt, the carpet,
and wet paw prints dry blue
on the freshly waxed desktop.
Five straight days of rain have left
a choking stench in the air. Mother complains
of chest pains. Father waits it out
in the chair, reading a book. I go
outside to get away, stand on the porch
steps, and watch the slugs glisten as they pass
slowly across the rocks. Somewhere
in the distance, tires slide across a wet street.
Brakes screech. Mother goes to the kitchen
to prepare supper, and I remember Sylvia
freeing herself in a gas oven
on just this kind of day.
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UNTITLED
When a child dies at our house,
we bundle up the soiled bedding,
wash it twice in strong detergent
to rid ourselves of his existence.
Pulling the sheets from the line,
we hardly notice the one with orange
flowers. We try not to check it
for leftover stains, or for tiny holes
imprinted in the fabric, in the shape
of fingernails. We fold the sheets
quickly, and talk about the iris
budding on the west side
of the house. Stuff the closet
with our memories, and plan not to use them.
The bottles tumble into the sink and bubble
under the hot tap, while steam rises
up and mists the window. The latest
purchase of medicine robs us
of money we could have used
for something else, and we can’t return it.
Outside, the moon suggests daylight
and travels west toward the iris.
The long clouds hang motionless
like him, last Sunday, when I
peered hesitantly over the bars,
not wanting to know what I had to
know, wishing I didn’t have to
watch as his ribs rose and fell
more slowly, more slowly until they
stopped. I am cold now.
The wind blows the curtains
and scatters the papers on the desk.
The cats, who have been napping
on the porch these weeks, return
to their chosen spots. One in the chair;
one beside me, on the bed,
where he was, once. His legs,
limp and curled inward, his arms
reaching for air, his eyes, clouded
but still blue, staring, staring.