The Plum The Plum
She held (very carefully) a plum in her memory. She held it
in her mind in her hand. She carried the plum and its pit its
impermanence and stroked the cleft
of its breast
with her thumb.
Pummeled, plum-lit, she loved
to touch it:
When she stood in line with a watermelon
she held in mind
the plum.
When she studied the corpse
in an oil painting, she stood
behind the plum.
The plum became
the whole of her head — set on her neck,
she nodded it yes, freed of need
to self-assess, admiring only —
the plum.
She placed the plum
inside a cup, and the plum became
her pain.
She held it high
through corridors, acutely angled
inner rooms, where someone, a neighbor, was frying onions —
she hates, but loves, the smell of them.
The house after three is a suburb. She grows there
duller, and gropes. All her thoughts — they take too long, coming around
the plum’s dark bulk — right up to the rim
of oblivion.
A wide flat stump squats on the edge,
and upon that stump, the plum. It’s knitting now, in the garbage dark:
an elaborate shroud around its rot.
Must be the “soul” or something
dull
translating plum to plum from plum —
Could be the soul, something dull,
a few hairs, some tears.
* * * * *
The Cup
Yes, still at it —
the table, the window. The lamplight,
low, seems to — increase — as evening
presses down. What I see from here
seems downcast — your eyelids —
proof of — perhaps —
it’s the cost of your thought. It’s clear
in there: you’re sitting in pain —
“scribbling by glint of a gold-rimmed cup.”
I’ve held that cup. Wide and thin,
it holds — itself —
one fine white crack — a razorblade, a wire
hair — white
sustenance, pure
despair: behind you — see?
The cell you keep neat
as the “script on a postcard of Mt. Rainier.”
I can see it there, that teacup
between us. Slip-cast of grit, it’s torn
your lip — little bloody smear.
Now turning a page, now looking up,
when you take a pill, a sip, a note —
when you tuck your hair behind your ear —
“The trick is to take the pain cup / up.”
(Swallow the blade. Follow the cut.)
The cells — selves! — divide — & shrug.
We know nothing, no one, only — of.