Moira’s work online:
pages.slc.edu
literal-latte
www.uno.edu
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For more Poetry
Moira EganD’habitude
“God, humans are creatures of habit,”
I say to no one particular,
myself, the man who calls himself my
lover, behind me in the next room.
The way we laugh when we hit the switch
knowing there’s no electricity,
or turn the faucet to wash our hands
anyway, plumber downstairs, no flow.
Do what you’ve always done, and you’ll get
what you’ve always gotten. This is our
homily these days, and I believe
it. God, humans, creatures, here we
sit in the cosmic chain of being,
him in the next room, me at my work.
He is reading, quietly, poems
that make him moan. This is sweet because
they are my own. He, of course, is not.
There is a woman some miles away
who yet is here with us, a corner
of the room and our consciences just
for her. Seems I’ve always been the third
angle of the triangle, the heart-
shaped chaos created by a yes
born of a no. And what I now know
is I want him alone, the slow moan
mine, no more shadowed eyes peering
from corners, through blinds. Do what I’ve done
always? always, I’ll trace clandestine skin.
A Valediction: Forbidding Valentine’s Day
These last few days prefigure spring
in all her excess. Mad birds break
from bush and branch, and screech or sing
an almost-melody; they take
the winter’s silence away from us.
Slowly the almond trees open,
blossoms crimson at center, limned frost-
pale, as if for protection.
The sun shines sometimes, the air’s cold,
and the sky. And you are far
and away from me, though you told
me you’d love me forever.
O and the sweet geometry,
perfect circle of your arms
like silk enfolding me.
Now the thought of that harms
me, stupid heart, ridiculous
as cupid cards and chocolate.
The points of that stiff twin compass
stab in rhythm at my breastplate.
This was meant to be a vale-
diction, a good-bye. But to what?
The veil of mourning, dark vale
of lonely in which I’ve lately dwelt?
I’ve begun to believe it’s valiant,
alone in the shadowvalley,
to watch lovers kiss and not want
anything more than wanting me.
You can turn pain around like a riverstone
in your pocket. Feel its smoothness,
resolve. Clear and cold as stream, you own
this wish to live alone in bliss.
Left-Handed Love Poem
I think you fell in love with me
the day I woke and solved the mystery
of the cabin in the Sierra Nevada
— altitude notwithstanding — it was
a Can Opener for the Left-Handed.
I got that coffee perking. At times
I’ve seen you struggle with my coffee maker, scissors.
It isn’t fun and games: think of golf clubs, playing cards,
restringing your Ovation. And you’ll never know
the slow joy of a fountain pen.
In spite of nuns and spiral notebooks
you’ve learned well: your hands speak the language
of your oppressor, though it’s a left-handed compliment
at best to praise your dexterity. But when language
drops away, and the buttons are undone —
and your prejudiced zipper —
and we lie together, you on your right side,
me on my left — what a wondrous mirror. And the hand
most fluent — my right, your left — reaches out and over —
I you there, you me here
We are chiasmus, a perfect X of sex.
And I think I’d never be right
again if you left.
Broken Sapphics
Incongruous nights, my horoscope tells
me, dragonflies whir, iridescent. I would like
to catch one, tie it in your flagrant red hair,
but I can’t right now.
Prayers ascend behind me, elaborate as
oratorios, a stained cathedral key.
I am blind and solid as malachite,
these statues of saints.
On Broadway I saw a sun-white cow’s skull on
a Navajo blanket. Trying to make sense
of this, flotsam, jetsam of my unconscious,
silver waves crashing,
the beer turns almost warm as blood in my hands.
I won’t look up when you leave / your cigarettes
here, a shadow. For them you return. We kiss
through a wrought-iron gate.
The one night in my house, our hair entangled,
anemones in flow and ebb, you felt my
pulse. Love, I thought; but your questions for me were
merely metrical.
O and how I am tired, a womanly tired
of all that I have tried, and truly, I look
to you, through you, for something, a heart that beats
gentle as velvet.
