Queen Anne has left cobwebs in her room
under curtains and in the places
she never used her broom, and through
the clouds of smoke her amber tip glows
illuminating ash like rows of nameless crop
suspended in the embrace of an illusionist
Queen Anne used to trace the ridge of God’s brow
with the heel of her thumb as if
she were sweeping the minute hand past the hour
and she has left her kingdom go to dust
let spiders turn to spectacles in pots and pans
spinning silk lines into rust
Queen Anne has sewn her fingers
like a cross-stitch over fields of lace and
learned to read the worry lines
aching in her face as deep as Mississippi
and the way she holds her gaze
keeps June at bay for just another day
Queen Anne has cut the seaming from her stem
and set herself in flight like a transatlantic jet
and we see her trail of smoke dissipate
at quarter after ten fading
white to green until next time
until then
The sea is sick. He has been in bed
for days with his shores
shrugged up around his neck, translucent
with cold sweat. He rolls the embroidered
edge between his fingers, churning sand
into his palm. I turn on the bedside
lamp and he cringes, turning away
from the sun and infinite seagulls
beading down his forehead. A nurse
stoops over, applying petroleum to the
cut above his brow—it glistens white
and antiseptic on the dock stitched
to his skin in shades of swelling
ironwood. He coughs, expelling a mound
of seaweed and nautilus bodies from
his lungs, washes them up onto his cheek, and
I hear his chest slosh as he heaves, roiling the
engine, and he sponges the foam from
his lips, falling back against the
pillow, darkened. Something muddy in him
dislodges, splashing against the transient
membranes of jet stream sifting through
his core, and I can see the waves curl
under in the spot when he glances
sideways and grabs my hand.
And I can see how the poets fall in love
with the sea, with every barnacle he
picks from his chin, every cold
current busting through his arm like a vein,
every dead reef and empty oyster.
I straighten his covers and pick a shell
from his palm like a piece of lint. His
temperature has skyrocketed and he is
restless, tortured, his kneecaps are
thick and aching, pulsing with saltwater,
and they want to pull him through
the halls in his hospital gown. There is a
profound rasp in his voice, a grating-against
that tells me there is something
worth saying, and he spits out a
whisper that is absorbed by the shuffling
of his oxygen tank. The sea is
sleeping, recuperating from his
convulsive dry hacks, his lethargic
tide breathing quiet into his sheets, his
mouth fluttering as he dreams. I
turn the lights out and leave him be.
His room is flooded with the solitary
caress of a lighthouse sweeping
across the dark, the palpable mist
illuminated for a second before all eyes
turn away.
You become a poet when you cry, you
are Homer, blinded by your tears, you are a prophet.
You will take a bouquet to the intersection
with the blanket of constellations embracing your
shoulders, settle their stems at the base of
the stop sign. You pull your hair into
the best bun you can manage, and you can’t.
Poet, rest your epic in my palms, I will
trace your lifelines. Poet, you are dialing
his cell phone just to hear the voice recording and
the beep chopping off into silence, you will
give him your messages from the rubbed
corners of your eyes.
REM Stage 6: A Poetry Blog || julie niklas 