Thread and needles & Esopus
by Ana Silva
[ poetry - september 10 ]
Thread and needles
who cares:
your mother never loved you
your lover took your whole body
and all of your eyes
that hurt you feel is illusion
beautiful illusion
our life's work
pulling out beneath your fingers
as if someone sticks a needle to each and every cell
at the same moment says "suck"
each mitochondira the energy center
pulled screaming into the tubes
a flush of blood at the end
so they know when to stop
we not knowing the cause
confused needing water juice crackers
plod on dizzy
a small gray shove
broke through the last one
delivering a thousand rough spirals
showing a chalky substrate
this one is wrought in double reinforced steel
bathed in concrete until it dries
the sun makes no magenta shadow through this one
this one will not move with a hailstorm of shoves
this one is heavy and thick but won't break
Ariadne wove grand tapestries
by herself
they warmed human hearts all round her
especially her own
she did not wait for the OK from the gods
Athena wearing a tight smile
ripped those threads into strings so fine
none could see their color
she said:
that's not for you to do
this is how it really is
you are a spider
crawling on the ground
your sticky iridescent walls in tangles
next to your small, sudden body
that is all
Esopus
falling in makeshift waters
the ugl ugl of stones
let go from your hands
when you right yourself
as you trip
stones you were carrying
from one place to another
you thought they were the thing
you held them with thumbs
aching in their webs
waters you made
in every detail
the river existed before you but
you always wanted to be in a river
exactly like this one
skidding drops on your arms and face
surprised
you
didn't register at first
the connection between the stones and the water
the stones
lost in waters muffled as memory
you forgot
what mattered was your hands open to push air
your body finding a way up again from going down
if anyone saw you they saw you jerk and twist
like a sea animal caught in the rocks before -
not submerging -
you stood
current flowing over gripped toes
like dirt covering the roots of a tree
