all my life i was a bride married to amazement
Jane Zwart
When death comes, final and novel—
the trick cul-de-sac or burst dam, a door
that opening erases or shutting disappears—
I want to watch the filmstrip once more.
I want to see the caterpillar, his whole body
a fat neck, rolling hills and horripilation.
I want to remember how, every time
he dropped from some leaf to my arm,
we appalled each other. I want to remember
how, every time, astonishment
made us the same.
When death comes, I want to watch,
reel-to-reel, my unrealized fears
yielding to what I never thought to dread:
meningitis, oily rags.
I want to flip back to the times
my name came up lucky
in the raffle of who-gets-to-see-herons.
All my life I was a bride married to amazement:
every sickness an affront, every peach
a geode. All my life: bowled over by every hell—
fresh, stale, it didn't matter—
and all my life blown about, a feather
on the breath of God.
When it is over, I want to say: it was a requited love.
But probably, even then, I will not know
whether I have passed my life as surprise's adept
or her dupe.
Probably, even then, I will only
be sure of falling asleep
beside my strange bedfellow, strange.
post heads
Johanna Kruit
That posts dwell at times in water and, lifeless themselves,
make each wave break is no surprise.
As trees they were ready for days on end
to block the wind or split up sunlight
through their leaves. It isn't that I love
dead trees. But a row of posts in sea-water
makes me feel at times
the way I feel in bed: safer
than by day. It is something
like reciting over the old names
of those who are no more. Out of your memory
fashion stories and slowly walk all over
a country of your own. Briefly kneel
for what is holy and know in your bones that
what's been taken away won't ever be forgotten.