The Undoing, and: Once a Procession
- The Undoing, and: Once a Procession
The Undoing
Not that creep coming up the stairs I dreamt,the house empty except for me one night.
Just CNN early evening, someordinary good guy volunteer, the admittedlylittle he knew about bandagingand blood roiling, to work on, to work throughpress here, stanch the flow—A small boy on a pallet now, no soundin the desert except the shriekand wail of his mother leaping out of her veil likean angel to pull him back.
No, don't pretty things up, don't embellish, don't makemore of this than it is. I still hear thatworse and worse. Out there the great worldin the eye of my TV, no nuance or shade, not one tree in sight.
Then what. That the creep I dream coming up the stairs,I rewind him out the door, back into his car, offunder whatever rock. There arecertain imaginary powers to be had.
Like I can lie awake, think of that exhaustedmake-do medic, stethoscope as evil eye,talisman over his heart, a charmto keep madness at bay.Long pauses. Quiet. Yeah, I've been changed by this.Even one kid. But so many sincecoming here. Not crossfire. Those snipers aimat the head.
I run that again, a bulletto the brain. And beg the no-hope in me forone last possible, as if, a shouldbloodless, in reverse, undo, undo. … [End Page 39]
Once a Procession
More like seawash or insects louder by suchsmall increments I couldn't even thinkhuman, so many, and huge that church in Rome,
vast nave, every lost kingdom on earth I confused,my straining to their muted cloud coming, whoand so slow, how they walked, they walked,
a migration! (to flee, to abandon, to breathe, embrace,to land somewhere seasick and finally), the samestones sounding out of them, a mantra rubbed
back so far only the forgotten first gods might knowthe precise duration, two, three notes over and over,paused the way the moon is always misery
and beauty at odds, precise as a clock strikes and closer,faces empty with light, to tear up or already shattered,a few in alb and chasuble, the long line of
five pilgrims across, two hundred maybe, the youngand those in-between, plus the old asdim, tough, a last wish, a whole village I guess
from a place with a steeple, a bridge,a river winding through grass and potatoes and rye,all drawn forward, synchronized
after a fashion to work time to what is timehaunted again is again no thoughtuntil every thought. [End Page 40]
Marianne Boruch's ninth poetry collection, Eventually One Dreams the Real Thing (Copper Canyon Press), was cited as a "Most Loved Book of 2016" by the New Yorker. The University of Michigan Press recently brought out her third collection of essays, The Little Death of Self, in its "Poets on Poetry" series.
