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i.
The light is already valedictory: receding,
fading over the hill. The day settles in,
less than was promised, minimally lit.
In my dream I am one of three women asked
what names we'd use as remarried widows:
after all, someone says, you have to know
what name to put in the grass.
I know she means on a stone, still I see
my name written, not on sand, like Spenser's
lover's love, or in water, like Keats', but in
the grass. In grass that is flesh, as it is now
in flesh that is grass.
That brief prolific flaunt
of green. Nothing
is stronger than grass.
ii.
That clouds are needed for sunrise
to be spectacle is a truth that lends itself
promiscuously to speculation. I am older than
Shakespeare ever was, than Emily Dickinson.
The truth is in my back, shoulders, the pliant
bones of my forearms. The truth is
a shadow, a blue figure slipping past
the green garage, slim, furtive,
death's harbinger.
iii.
The mayor orders lamppost-sized pens
carved of ivory plastic, like mammoth chessmen,
erected in front of my house: landmarks, totems
of my craft. Inside, I am feeding a neglected baby,
memorizing a Latin poem for the upcoming
ceremony. I don't know on which side
my irony is buttered, but survival depends
upon eating the loaf I've sliced.
iv.
Sunrise. Great Rorschach blots of slate
cloud mass on the horizon. The bright
creek lined with three trunks:
departure's shadow.
I dream of obsequies: a crowd
of women talk about those who've died,
judging, "she kept her good to herself."
At ninety my aunt wears high heels, makeup,
jewels she creates, determined to live.
Waking and sleeping, sleeping and
dreaming, waking and dreaming.
We are set in an orbit which
cannot be exceeded.
v.
In a narrow cluttered room, the furniture
covered with books, I sit with two fellow poets
at a long narrow table, draped with lace, formally
set. I'm afraid I've forgotten the food, but a feast
appears on the sideboard, consommé, caviar,
a rich chocolate cake. We linger for hours after
it's consumed, eating our words, sliced open
like melons, dripping, ripe. Each of us finds
a fortune cookie under the fruit. I break
the shell of mine to find emptiness, no slip
of paper; shiver a moment at truth
revealed: the certainty of nothing.
vi.
I am planning my funeral, consulting
my husband about what dress the body
should wear, split in two: dead body,
living observer. My son brings a girl home
to join the rites: she thinks I should wear
a tee-shirt, old pants, but I choose
my wedding gown.
The woman I am on this deathbed
is one of a thousand selves,
final but no more defining
than any of the thousand.
vii.
There are small pink cries on the gray
horizon: flares of a substance different
from the gray stuff of clouds, the stratus
quo, gold-glazed green fields, trees
with their hair turning yellow. Geese
fly into the light, pale shades.
A fainting widow is carried from
the funeral, small, white-haired.
Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures
new is a gesture I hope for
the grace to end with.
In my garden, the dogwoods
are speaking crimson. Everywhere
roots are growing, while stems and leaves
rust, shrivel, blackened flower heads
grin, skeletal, gnarled. Gather me
into the day.
viii.
The terms are final, the sentence passed.
Whose house have I come to in this last
dream of a house, dreamt on my deathbed?
What cadence drums in its rooms?
The games begin and end, fine and
fragile as houses. I must change my life.
I must love it and live it. I must live it
and leave it. I must leave it.
I will hold this emptiness
in my arms until it has compressed
to the illusion of substance.
Sandra Kohler's latest collection, The Ceremonies of Longing, was selected as the winner of the 2002 AWP Award Series in Poetry and was published in November 2003 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. A previous collection, The Country of Women, was released by Calyx Books in 1995. In addition, her work has appeared in various publications, including The New Republic, The Gettysburg Review, and Prairie Schooner. In March, she will be reading at the 2004 AWP Conference, held this year in Chicago.
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