Alternatives
One poet said:
I know/
what it means to beget monsters
and to recognize in them/
myself.
And that was
the steep terrain
of his
war. And maybe, on days
his rifle was
oiled he was still
and the prairie
was flat and her grass
reminded him of
home and the cliché
of the farmer’s
daughter. And maybe
when the bolt
failed to retract, or when re-
loading wasn’t
automatic or the pin
was in his
teeth but the grenade ticked
its silent
asthmatic sigh in the palm
of his hand the
splay of his fingers, before his cinch
of fist, was a Gorgon,
and he was looking
back to her face
in
thanks that such reflections
don’t have the
power
to turn him
mineral, that
his own firm pushing
at the zipper
would find its oiled warmth
somewhere and
she’d want it
this time
and he’d want it
again and
neither would be afraid.
But the other
poet, considering Mary,
and how she
could’ve said NO (because God’s not
a ravisher) and
gone on her way
and another
Virgin would rush
the stage like
some Pentecostal call
to the altar
instead. (in who’s stead? God’s
I suppose)
and she says,
the poet: Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort
or another
in most
lives?...
when roads
of light and storm
open from
darkness in a man/
or
a woman…
And that was the
steep
terrain of
her
combat.
But because any
kind
of divining
needs a pulse
and a stick,
and we could shuff our shoes thin
waiting for it
to drop straight down
we simply trade
one monster for its egg
and refuse the
brood
of warmth,
refuse, even after that fantastic
ripplerippleripple
in the grass, the spitting
of cells. It’s destiny I suppose. The doctor,
expert at
intact dilation and extraction,
or the boy
still holding the unpinned grenade…
We don’t know
what it is that we’re holding
or what it is
that we’ll toss
as nonchalantly
as any deamon
trying on a new
suit of clothes
and considering
themselves
in the mirror
for the first time,
the very first
time
and calling
what they see
by any other
name than what it absolutely is.
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