On the Seawalla community gallery of new writing, art and commentary hosted by Ron Slate

Memento Mori: Ranunculus

 

Little frog, your petals,

reticent and tight, teach me

 

not to say too much.

Not to ask questions.

 

I have been Early Light,

Copper, or Monarch tulip,

 

open to everyone who

walked near enough to see

 

the deep stain of color

inside. You hold yourself,

 

dignified and layered

in pink tulle — silent

 

as the long-necked gamine

dancers I watch with envy,

 

not simply for their thin

frames that reach impossible

 

shapes, but for the silence

0f their mouths that know

 

to speak dilutes the art

their body makes. Little

 

demon, your center — lime

green as my jealousy —

 

whispers secrets. I am

the one who knows

 

nothing, who waited

neglected and patient

 

as Penelope for twenty

years. I should not judge

 

with eyes that have seen

one distortion of love.

 

Listen as he takes

your face in his open

 

hands. Don’t worry

what he thinks

 

about when he’s alone.

What flowers he says

 

he doesn’t see as they

sway in the wind.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

February 19, 2020

 

This has always been the month of death I tell the dog as my oldest friend dies on her daughter’s birthday. I try not to think of the June evening we ate across from the Acropolis our last night in Athens. Twenty-two years ago, the only tragedies we knew were those from books we studied in school. We bought the same make-up and sun glasses — so young, we didn’t know we didn’t need them. My daughter wakes at four am from a fever and echoes what I whisper to console her. On my birthday, she’s too sick to go to school and sleeps all day. When I walk her to the bakery for a croissant, I sing in the dark to keep her calm.

Samuel Beckett wrote, “Memories are killing. So you must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don’t there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little.”

I let myself think of Georgia as I break from work. I sift through the pink photo box from grad school — the first wedding in Kastoria, the pensione in the mountains where the walls were so thin, we could hear each other breathe. For years I was envious of her healthy daughters. After we were both in remission, she drove me to Sonoma for a mud bath. We stood together in the shower as big as a studio, our scars white and jagged as the path we drove in the Peloponnesus to get to the sea. She said we were cured but I thought we were living on borrowed time. Nobody is ever right about anything.