One More Hymn to the Sun, and: Eggs, and: Picking Raspberries

12 THE MISSOURI REVIEW ONE MORE HYMN TO THE SUN / Lisa Mueller You know that like an ideal mother she will never leave you, though after a week of rain you begin to worry but you accept her brief absences, her occasional closed doors, as the prerogative of an eccentric lover You know which side of the bed she gets up on, though being a night person, you are on more intimate terms with the moon, who lets you watch, while the sun will put out your eyes for tampering with her privacy She wants to be known by her parts, fingers, a flashing leg, a cheek, a shoulder; by things spilled from her purse: small change, a patterned scarf, mirrors, keys, an earring You like the fact that her moods are an orderly version of yours, arranged, like the needs of animals, by seasons: her spring quirks, her sexual summers, her steadfast warmth in the fall; you remember her face on Christmas Day, blurred, and suffused with the weak smile of a woman who has just given birth Lisel Mueller 13 The way she loves you, your whole body, and still leaves enough space between you to keep you from turning to cinders before your time! You admit she colors everything you see, that Renoir and Monet are her direct descendants; she could make you say the grass is red, the snow purple She never gave up on you though it took you billions of years to learn the alphabet and the darkness you cast on the ground changed its shape again and again 14 THEMISSOURIREVIEW EGGS / Lisel Mueller Mothershape, how we love you! In dreams we almost remember the floating cushions, the waterbed; in nightmares we hack our way out of the calcium walls which refused to expand with us. When we eat eggs, we return. It's a matter of beginnings. Heart attacks are forgotten when the delicious, dangerous yellow is rich and smooth as paint in the can and the tasteless, foam-rubber white transformed by a pinch of salt, when we sit down for picnic lunches and peel our way back inside, the shell falling under our fingers to reveal the gleaming rim, the oval promise through which we come to the holy of holies, the green-tinged, golden, solid sphere, a child's first model of the moon. Lisel Mueller 15 PICKING RASPBERRIES / Lisel Mueller Once the thicket opens and lets you enter and the first berry dissolves on your tongue, you will remember nothing of your old life. You can stay in that country of sun and silence as long as you like. To return, you have only to look at your arms and discover the long red marks. You will have discovered pain, which has no place there. ...