I do not want to tell the truth.
I do not want to tell anyone that at this moment
I wish my measure of days were at an end.
.
I do not want to tell anyone
about the puppies I had to drown
when their mother had no milk and I had no money.
.
The truth is a wound
a devouring and huge flower opening at night
a cave in the soul into which everyone
descends, chained to each other.
The truth is sticking pins into someone
by speaking her anguish.
.
I hurry over frosted grass before it happens
and I reach my lair. I go down on all fours;
my kits are waiting for me and they latch on to my teats.
I am panting with fear and sorrow.
.
It is the truth that I drank this morning;
I thought it was clear and safe water, from a spring.
but shortly afterward I began howling out litanies
of absence, loss, hatred of the ragged broken woman
I have become
.
I would step outside myself and hold myself
under water if I could.
I would reopen veins I opened long ago
but I know I would run toward the house shouting help me
.
I prefer
to be that creature of the grass
who survives on moonlight
bone-thin, singing her heart out
letting everything that needs her drink her dry.
Wow, can we handle the truth? This is stunning. Thank you.
I think that you and I were having the same sort of “moment’ yesterday, given your poem…. I will get back to you later today. I can’t thank you enough for your encouragement– you know how it is. We think we’ve “delivered (ourselves) of our meaning,” as Virginia Woolf puts it, but we can’t know unless someone responds. As I said to you, you’ve written a beautiful poem and I am honored that you sent it to me. xj