• Each Life
• Getting Lost in Space Beyond Estrogen

Breakdowns

Try to forgive it: the smell of stale cigarette
back then in the basement phone booth
of the dormitory,
you standing there counting
the nicks in the door,
the dime rooted to your hand,
ears ringing from pills, the hinged brain
swinging into sky,
your body floating till
a finger drifts down, you watch it
dialing the doctor,
wanting to live.
Remember, it happens to everyone,
this trailing away of hope
like a flimsy scarf. Remember
the pudgy rolls of the child,
receding telescope eyes,
shot at the family picnic, holding
a limp ball. Forgive
the smell of salami, hot grass,
aluminum chairs, familiar voices, shame.
Every moment's a deathbed,
candle burning in the brown room,
hair greasing pillow, the scapula
stark and fragile. Wings
flutter over the eyes,
rustle of leavetaking, heart
leaps off the branch,
while you remain
inching through sticky days.
This happens while you are reading the TV Guide,
waiting in silent crowds for your train,
peeling an orange at the kitchen sink.
Now raise your eyes to the hill out your window
full of night,
lit by houses in which bruised children dream,
women with layered aches drag upstairs,
men numb as shrapnel drink at TV screens. Forgive
all, and the proud shrieks
of teens in the church next door,
loosing their fledgling
blindness on the world.

Copyright © Judy Wyatt

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