Also in this issue, an excerpt from Yael Shinar’’s poetic documentaryAWAKE, ALERT, ORIENTED
_______
Yael Shinar
Suicide
How do I speak
without synonyms?
I could say that she died,
by the digits of her hand and perhaps ofher mind.
I could say that the usual thingshappened:
the muscles stiffened,
the bowel moved,
the urine leaked
onto her casual clothes, down to herblack socks.
Her eyelids went a little blue and tearsdried on her face.
Then professionals came.
Had she let me, I would have taken her toa surgeon,
to implant my love a little deeper.
Then to remove the anesthetic mask thatcovers her now like a prayer shawl.
Over a year, my grief leaks out of melike sweat, and my bowel moves.
I restore stores, I remove waste, and Iscour fleeting illnesses.
Part of the whole story goes like this:
her brother found her, hanging, still hisown as ever.
Her mother asked “yes” and “no” questionsabout the past.
Satisfaction from sugar became morefleeting after her burial,
and also more sufficient.
I began to chart distances betweensynonyms.
It was noon, probably, when she began todie.
Evening came, and I cried with my boyfriend.
Next, the sun rose, distinct in thesky-blue sky.
1
to wake alone
to open the window tospring chill—
a stranger to the dew
to wake alone, wanderroom to room,
turning on lights,
turning them off—
the heater turned on, atourniquet to
quiet this mind—
the birds outside—
their feathers tremblein the breeze—
2
This world, a substantiatedadjective meaning God,
which means,
alive and looking, or
pressing my thumb intoan old wall to taste and erase the dews of the ancients, who built it, or
the anchor that holds no ship
in the shallowest duneof the sea,
the chain billowing up
to the surface of thewater,or
hearing gaps between thesinging and the sung, my heart, or
memories, like ripe, wetbones in flesh.
Orthe one by whom
we take the long view—
we see our children,
one of them will behappy
of this land
The one who, when I asknow, “What land?”
says at one breath inone time,
“The one you stand on.”
“The other one.”
3
Stranger, consider theneighbor
who wakes and makescoffee,
straps leather over thearches of her feet
in the same gulp of time—
on loan from theheavens, or from God,
or from whatever wedepend upon
to rewrite confusion,each morning,
in sconces of blessing—
as the blue blurs intoyellow,
the way light,
but no human pigment
can—
we have an analogy forthis:
the child moves fromsounds to words,
intention has alreadybeen there some
time—
thisis no drastic or lamentable change,
it is the mysterybecoming the writing,
the air
becoming the breath—
4
Morning dews
on blades of grass,
across the down ofbirds,
intothe veins of leaves.
The leaves, they arethis polysemic,
polytheistic prayer,
bowing all around
to seek the old shoot
that vanished long ago,
last winter.
The song of the leaves
sings quietly
one history of onepeople
to many
unswaddled souls.
They are looking
for the name of theirGod,
whose call they heardall winter
who created limbs forthem
they only now see—
—If God does notsit in the nostrils of the starling’s beak,
the veins of the eye
writing their script
on the new world.
Twelve Starts
—
You’ll have twelve starts from beginningto finish,
and when you get toeleven, we lose count, we start over.
—
The city gate
cannot tell us
by what hand it grew,
was cleaned
arched its back to letthe night through
its narrow veil
of stone.
—
The city,
so many times torn
and born
—
The sun set, having noregret—
—
There are long daysavailable to us.
—
Available to us, water,the sun setting.
—
Apples will ripen,someone will bake yeast bread,
even in seasons we liein bed and grow thin, thinking.
—
A woman in a blue dressis native to this country in the sense that, like it, she mimics the sky.
—
Guilt echoes through ourorgans like organs in church bathrooms.
—
Have I nothing to saythat will etch
into emptiness
a sign of justice?
—
Etchings
seem wise investments—
not to hang, but tomake,
to get to know the wrist—
a solitary lovemaking
to time
—
Which way to the beginning?
I’ll follow you