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ASH WEDNESDAY
All of us marked, visibly or not, going on about
our business as the night’s full moon in eclipse,
called the blood moon, now fades to gray,
as do the rest of us to corners and shadows,
but in a fine painting by Vuillard—saw it live
today!—that grand troubadour of mysteries
lurking in the everyday—painted his mother
as she opens a yellow curtain, exposing
a flowered shade, which she’s about to draw back,
leaving us to wonder, what’s next. His mother,
that grand seamstress, connoisseur of pattern
and fabric, she has her place in time.
Piano teacher four doors down getting nasty
about Bruce, our postman—our own connoisseur
of the hours and their patterns—
for yakking on his phone, while hauling
her stuff up her steps, she threatens to turn
that sucker in, our whole block
in an uproar to shut her up, shut her down. I’ve
never been anything but a spectator,
Vuillard wrote. Today, a smudge of ashes
on the brow, palm fronds next, the lilies
will come soon. Always another curtain
to draw open.
EARLY EDUCATION
Dear ladies, gents, won’t make it
to your 50th. One day, dear little thugs of long ago,
I arrived in polished boots, fringed shirt
with silver snaps—gift from Ma—and was late,
Dad’s pickup raced us from farm
to town, and I stood before you all—
with your circle pins, pastel flats, your
slicked-back boy hair, penny loafers—
snickering beneath the yellow-toothed grin
of your homeroom goon, Mrs.
Something—who cares! She got Dad
to remove me! Me—bereft of a skirt!
Pa heads us to the track, the late set
galloping out, jogging back. Trainers mumble,
pony girls rosy, hot-walkers, racing forms rattle,
Dad pleased the colt worked the six in twelve
and change, galloped out kindly,
whole backstretch alive
with glazed donuts, cocoa, enough smart talk
to call back, all down the years. World’s had
its way, good times outweigh the rest.
SENSE OF SMELL
What you pull toward you from near or afar,
wafting they call it, summoning the air
laden with aroma to build another world
for the moment, for what moments
we have left
There’s a hunger for scent that starts high up,
behind the nose, where you first take in,
and then sort of behind the eyes
where the top notes of a good perfume
burst wide open with the bright urgency
of citrus and…a cry of immediate delight
later opening out to that space between
the ears where the heart notes first inscribe
their beauty. Rose and jasmine, boronia
and wild orange, spreading lush beauty
to the back of the throat, all the way
through the chest, filling you with
exotic fragrance. As you
absorb that warmth, the base notes
stake their claim—frankincense, ambergris
and musk, the chords sound and resound
down as they bloom through the body,
castoreum, choya, and myrrh
flowering the moments
between the spaces, binding the melody,
hushing the chorus, softening the harmonics
resounding, flowing up with warmth—
all these voices,
and the gift of smell, which is to take all this in,
pull together in the body, in the spirit,
as a conductor, this multitude of voices,
invite them to linger and flourish
for their brief, eternal moment.
A MOON ROCK OF YOUR OWN
Here’s a fresh moon rock for sale
it’s original, someone worked hard
to obtain it and will freely provide,
its papers, its pedigree—if you will—
as well as a brief, but striking video.
I can get it for you cheap and easy,
plus, I’ve got feathers from the wing
of an angel, tulip bulbs from the Garden
of Eden, I have the only thought plucked
from the brow, below the auburn tresses,
from within the alabaster skin of the only
Virgin Mary. I can post it on eBay, I can
e-mail you, Facebook you, can like you,
tweet you, can text you, so tell me what
you want, I will deliver, I always do, even
precious sunbeams, either distilled
or fermented, in exquisite jars. I’ll sell you
anything, I’ve got joy for sale, so much joy.
LOOKING BACK
Sometimes it’s good to leave home if only
to remember who made you, where you’re from,
how you carry the scent of geranium and saddle soap,
hoof trimmings and mock orange—unbidden—as you slide
through another country, with its noises and flavors,
its precision about gesture, what pasta tonight,
what subjunctive right now—essential encounters—
all astonishing, until missing my own people
avalanches down with a roar, grief burning to sorrow,
the days carry on, if you call it that, what remains—
sharp tang of small moments—how delicately she
eased her old dog out the door, how he wiped his face,
stomping snow from his shoes, out of hundreds
of unknowable people, lazily streaming all this Sunday
through Bologna’s huge piazza, it’s you we miss.
Helen Wickes is the author of four books of poetry: In Search of Landscape, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2007; Moon over Zabriskie and Dowser’s Apprentice, both from Glass Lyre Press, 2014; World as You Left It, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2015. All six poems published in this article are from an unpublished manuscript titled “Transit of Mercury”. She grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, has lived in Oakland, California for many years, and used to work as a psychotherapist. She is a member of Sixteen Rivers Press, which has recently released the anthology America, I Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience.
