Poems | Photos | Journal | E-mail   when we were very small

Maybe if we knew different gods
we would call out to the cottonmouths
in our wet garden of cypress knees and cattail rods
and offer them apples for wisdom
wrap the reptiles around us
and we might sing
like the pentecostal mystics in tennessee
or the oracles at Delphi who could prophecy to kings
          but we killed years cloistered together
          vestal sisters
          scribbling crosses in the sand
          trying to draw that line between
          faith and superstition and
our mother distilled our purity from her madness
still we grew like weeds.

I took a sip of communion wine once and
spilled the rest on my skirt
I cried out in pain
but that which christens cannot hurt, they told me
it can only leave a little stain.

meanwhile
I read yesterday's papers
checking my horoscope to see
if it had come true while I wasn't looking
I am so Leo
always wanting to hear more about myself
"You will get a phone call from an interesting stranger"
after 24 hours, even the facts can't hurt you

so go tell that to your broken heart
the mornings after meeting snakes
because mostly we still sing of love--
that grand exercise in futility that
perennially kills and resurrects
without conscience
But eventually there are places even weeds won't grow
yes, I know.

She wonders aloud if my neuroses were free
or if I had to fuck them all for that
don't ask me--statistics never could suspend
the things that I believe

I know numbers can lie more easily than tongues
but she will never hear that part

So go then--make your own bad choices.
I'll stand here on the catwalk
tossing marshmallows for alligators to chew
how could I pray those prayers for you?

I should have been a priestess in coiled bracelets
and virtuous white robes then I could
take your appeals to the powers above
but I propose that we should close our eyes
let us forget we sometimes need to breathe so hard and love
is just a habit for the weak and not the wise.

Listen:
A few miles away swim dolphins
calling to sailors with truth and riddles
blissfully tangling in seaweed and calamari
Venus came from the ocean like that
did they baptize her with a handful of sand
then throw her back?
we too were kept in shells
(salt does preserve us after all)
and what could be more worthy of forever
than this stifling innocence
nostalgia sometimes sells?

Stop it. I don't know what you need.
I can only borrow the apologies of others:
"I did the best I could."

Put your shoes on.
The sidewalk is so hot in august
and the dandelions in the cracks
turn toes yellow with time
and in this way
we still deny
we broke our mother's back.

copyright, C.M. Priest