Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003

The Little Flower

Seven years already, Longer than anyone ever would have thought. We buy beer; I’d like A colorful tail like that. On our island we walk, eat, lie, Drink, walk, analyze, analyze. This moon we do not like we’ll like Remembering, and know it. Do we trust ourselves more this morning? Today we can stay in bed all day. Ah, love, The soap, Irina! You have no soap! The sheets, Irina, in Six! Knock knock. Knock. We give it up, we are married Seven years, we can smile with the backs of our heads: The two-backed beast is wild, We let him go. He said. She said. He said. We turn our backs For home. On the wall it said “For Fire: Continuous ringing of bell and call of fire.” The Little Flower I thank God, I have never taken to drinking, as many I know have, I have never done that and my children should be thankful but they are not, I have not been that kind, I say my prayers every night, Lots of them do and with less reason, I did once but put it from me, and with all the shocks I have had to bear, such shocks in those terrible years, you do not know, my father, my father was a mean man, dream barker 61 Given to giving nicknames, He called me Susan B. Anthony because I was so strong I guess, I have never given way as others would have done, he called your aunt Bunny because when her first two teeth came in he said she looks just like a bunny, she did look just like a bunny, we will call her Bunny and so she is to this day I am eighty-three she must be eighty, strange she was always jealous of my looks Bun was, I was tall and slim And very beautiful they all said so, And she thought I had all the looks always was a jealous kind of person but you know she was very lovely too, I was jealous of her too, isn’t that funny I always thought Bun had such nice feet and I always thought my feet were ugly isn’t that funny, the things you will get into your head, feet It hasn’t all been roses, My mother was a Ross a Ross from Scotland, they were a noble clan, your mother sent me a postcard once of the Ross castle, I have it somewhere in these suitcases, it’s in the north Oh I must set my things in order I must have help to set my things in order, so many papers, no one will come and soon I will be gone and then who will, No now we will talk it is so good, to have someone to talk to, is that chair all right for you not in a draft, this room has a terrible draft you have beautiful eyes, A little like mine oh when I was younger You have always been a good child and you know you get funny all alone in a room I hope I have never complained but you get and at my age, no one understands what it is like to be old, does my mind wander, that is what I I forget things Words do not come to my mind, my mother was a Ross from Scotland , they were a noble clan, she used to tell such wonderful stories and sing us the old songs she would go on with those stories and songs the children loved her, she came and visited us often and stayed weeks and weeks, she was always there if I were sick, I hope she always knew she had a home with us and I was sick so much with the climate what it was and the miscarriages and the babies, and she always came to be a comfort to me, but then she died, 62 door in the mountain What it is like He had died long before that, there is a place for Bun and a place for me with them in the plot in Minneapolis, I don’t care about cremation it seems the cleanest thing you don’t mind talking about these things do you, neither do I some people do but I don’t mind talking about these things at all, look at my...