[I just read this poem and was astonished. Linda gave me permission to share it out as one of my Notes. The images are visceral and leaped off the page for me. The understated sentiment is the more powerful because it is subtle. Enjoy...or if "enjoy" is the wrong word...experience.]
Untitled
Pain is essentially peculiar
enough of it and you start to think
well, here’s reality
the rest is a dream
it bellows from the crib
but by the time you’re a kid
and skinned your knee
anesthesia is air.
Frail bald kids know
the devil sends morphine
to keep our veil of tears unseen,
and our ancestors
who hadn’t time or Novocain
still could have, if they’d wanted
bent spoons with their brains.
Back then the status quo
as consumptive breath explains
was dubious comfort
and truthful woe,
so when loved ones
especially children died
their hair was kept and swirled
into pressed glass charms
to pin on blouse and shawl
as paint to brush
tendrils drew a mournful scrawl--
portraits, landscapes
twisted braid broaches
necklace weaves of beads and tresses
not homage to pain
more, portable gain.
Souls must be stomped into flesh
for the right fit
bar-belled in with weights of
intractable air
pressed down like leaded glass
on locks
of a departed child’s silken hair.
Copyright 2010, Linda Moody Chromick
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