Parvati at Her Bath, and: Treatment, and: Pelvis with Distance

Parvati at Her Bath

Once, I arrived to find Ana Christensen’s motheralone in the kitchen, eating chicken hearts.

And when Shiva arrived to find a strange childguarding Parvati’s bath, he cut off the boy’s head

so that he could pass. And here, in bed 7a, is my soldier-friendwith a young god’s face, his thighs pared down to flippers.

I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in a movie:Mrs. Christensen’s white-blonde head, her swan-blonde neck,

her cigarette unfurling as it rested on a bloodied plate.The only sound was the clink of her knife and fork.

When Shiva left Parvati, he could disappear for an Age.The goddess roamed the palace, trailing wind and her braid.

She ended the loneliness using turmeric and her own breath.It was a boy she made, Ganesh, a son. His small heart

beating golden blood. Then, Shiva cut off the boy’s head,then Parvati stepped from the bath, then the whole

universe was nearly swallowed by a mother’s rage.My soldier and I play a game of where to rest

our eyes. I want to die, he tells me. I think I’ve alwayswanted to die, and my mouth is filled with the taste:

blood-dirt, metal, chicken hearts and aquavit.In a parking lot, I’d seen Ana Christensen’s father,

his arm around the waist of some other woman.What was Ganesh thinking not to step aside

when Shiva threatened? Why didn’t he protest,I’m the Goddess Parvati’s son? Was he filled with fury

when Shiva gave him an elephant’s head, made hima beast, bringing him back to life? No one was surprised

when Ana Christensen’s mother died of a failed liver.Have you ever wanted to die? the legless god whispers.

Who can accept themselves as a beautiful monster?It’s spring again in this world. From the bank I watch

a whole dogwood tree, bobbing in the water.The river can’t hold everything that needs to be washed

downstream. I walk through what’s left at the edge:buoys, reeds, old lighters, a muskrat, half its tail devoured.

Treatment

On the dark stage, the actress playing the young Sontag writheswith books and longings. Susan! The seriousness

with which she took her own mind and her ideas of pleasure—Who has that kind of faith in themselves? Listen,

a finch is singing in the lilac. I can see the yellow bodyin the leaves, its frantic chest, its shaking. I saw a girl once,

half covered with burns—it was the doctor who saved her.I must work, Sontag says. That is everything and nothing.

Deep into writing a book, she has her son take the cigarettefrom her mouth, tap the long ash into a dish, and place it back

in her lips, so that her typing wouldn’t be delayed.Five children had made it out of a fire,

three of them the doctors didn’t take the time to treat.Their mothers put their faces close

to whichever part looked least hurt. They talked.One mother hummed a little song. To keep the heart beating,

the surgeon put a graft on the burned girl’s chest.On the stage, the cigarette smoke rises. Susan tries

to apply words to the surface of things. A badge. A skin.It’s not the same. But when nothing will ever be the same,

you find a treatment. More birds, more anesthetic,more songs, more debridement.

Someday, you’ll write about it, the surgeon later said.The operating theater was empty. He was on his third drink,

I was still shaking. No, I answered. Never.You will, he said. I’m a doctor. Trust me.

Pelvis with Distance

(Georgia O’Keefe, 1943)

Bone         and sky:I waited my whole life

to be naked         Not nude,which means unclothed

for the educated,self-deluding eye—

that’s not naked,that was putting on clothes

of the character...